


The Building Blocks Job

by HonestBee



Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot backstory, Eliot has guilt, Eliot is a mother hen, Eliot is no pushover, Friendship, Gen, No Romance, Parker has childhood trauma, Parker is stubborn, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 11:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestBee/pseuds/HonestBee
Summary: Parker's off the "happy pills," Eliot's feeling nostalgic. They accidently find a new case. Again. Follow-up to The 12-Step Job.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the DVD order of episodes, this story fits directly between The 12-Step Job and The First David Job. I wanted to tie off the loose end of Parker's "happy pills" experience, since it's something I just can't see Eliot ignoring. Features sibling bonding and a bit of Eliot's backstory. Thanks for reading!
> 
> This was first posted on the other fanfiction site between Sept 18 and Nov 28, 2017. Sorry if it's a rerun to anyone here.

It had been a very good thing that Eliot had been both relaxed (as relaxed in public as he ever was, anyway) and paying attention when Parker jumped him like some sort of alien spawn from one of Hardison's movies. If she had caught him by surprise, things could have gone downhill very fast. Parker never _tried_ to surprise him, as she seemed to enjoy doing to the others, even though he knew she possessed the skill to do so. She would always announce herself to him, not always so obviously as calling out of course, but by scuffing a shoe or slipping into his peripheral vision from a safe distance. The odd thing was that he had never had to warn her to do so, she seemed to sense from the start that he would prefer not to be snuck up on, and she respected that. It was one of the few boundaries she did respect.

Part of Parker's sneakiness around the team was her genuine enjoyment in catching them unawares. Hardison seemed to be her favorite target, and Eliot had to admit he enjoyed seeing the kid jump about a foot every time she did it. He had no _zanshin_ whatsoever.

Parker didn't like to _be_ surprised, however, and that was related to the other part of her sneakiness and her usual aversion to touch, and _that_ was why this uncharacteristic display, coupled with her overall...giddiness...bothered Eliot very much. It wasn't that Parker was never happy around them, but there was usually a proximate cause; jumping off a building, conning a bad guy out of a lot of money, a new box of cereal. It wasn't like her to be so...giggly...for no real reason. And it was NEVER like her to be so touchy-feely. Eliot had learned the reason for that the hard way.

So when his rhetorical "when do the happy pills wear off?" proved prophetic, Eliot took it upon himself to keep a close watch on her. She must have taken some kind of antidepressant, it was the best explanation for her sudden extremely good mood.

Why she had been taking it, and how she had gotten hold of it in the first place remained a mystery he intended to solve, but not right this moment. It was likely Hardison's fault. Or Nate's. Or both. What was most important was what needed to be done now. She had abruptly stopped taking it and was going to crash, and she was probably going to crash hard, if the upswing in her mood was any indication. He didn't want her to be alone when it happened. She had only been on it for a few days, tops, but those drugs could play havoc with the body awfully quick, especially in someone who didn't need them. The problem was that, like him, Parker was probably more used to holing up, going to ground, when she was sick or hurt, than asking for help. He was going to have to make her accept his help, and doing that was going to be asking her for an awful lot of trust.

Eliot had noticed that throughout the afternoon, Parker's happiness wore off and she withdrew from them. By late afternoon, post-briefing, she had disappeared, presumably to her personal office. Eliot was sure she hadn't left their suite.

No one else seemed overly bothered by Parker's behavior today, and Eliot could see how Hardison might _think_ he would enjoy this version of her...Eliot couldn't really blame them, they wouldn't have the experience he did with this kind of thing. Scratch that, Nate would understand if he wasn't three sheets gone again by now. Sophie's frustrated nagging had finally driven him to his office, and she had left for the day in a huff. Hardison had settled in to do some hacking thing, all the while muttering about how the world's problems could apparently be solved over a plate of tacos.

So, Eliot accepted taking care of Parker would best fall upon him. Since he had stitched Nate up after that bank robbery job, because a hospital would have to report a bullet wound, he seemed to have been press-ganged into being the team's de facto medic. It made sense, really. He had combat medic training from his time in the Army, and a whole lot more than simple field experience from...after...that. Rather than blow through aliases going to a hospital or a clinic whenever anyone was injured, he'd just...patch them up. He'd done it for himself often enough.

What really surprised him was the apparent change in perception of what constituted "acceptable risk" in a job. Back when they helped that soldier, the team had been ready to split over the danger...now somehow, Hardison getting metal splinters in his hands from hanging off an elevator cable, or Parker's cuts from unfinished edges inside ventilation shafts, or Nate being shot, was deemed no big deal. It definitely made his place on the team more difficult, and much more important, if they were willing to take bigger and bigger risks. Or rather, if _Nate_ was willing to take bigger risks.

Nate. He had come up with this hare-brained rehab plan, he could do his part to help Parker now. Eliot stalked down the hall to his office, and pushed through the half-closed door.

"Send Hardison home," he stated without preamble, "tell him and Sophie to take a week off. You, too."

Nate sat back in his chair, full tumbler (not his first, judging by the state of the bottle on his desk) balanced in hand. "Any particular reason? We have several potential clients to review tomorrow."

"I don't care, there's nothing that can't wait a week, put 'em off. Tell Hardison to go visit his Nana, tell Sophie to go shopping in Paris or wherever. And YOU can drink yourself into oblivion for all I care, but the team is takin' a week off. AWAY from the offices."

Nate took a sip from his tumbler and silently regarded Eliot in that infuriating way of his. "Why, Eliot?"

_Sonofabitch_. "'Cause Parker ain't on the 'happy pills' any more. I _know_ you know what that means." He deepened his glare for good measure.

Nate finally leaned forward and set down his tumbler. "Yeah, do you...do you need any help?"

"Why do you think I'm tellin' you to get rid of the rest of the team? Ya got ten minutes to do it!" He turned and stalked out of Nate's office, back down the hallway to the little kitchen Hardison had worked into the original renovation. It was separated by a bar-height counter from what was affectionately becoming known as "the lounge."

The lounge consisted of a couch, coffee table and a couple of overstuffed armchairs set around a single big-screen television. While not as perfect an arrangement for watching sports as the six massive screens in the conference room, the lounge was becoming a place where anyone who didn't feel like going home right away could watch a movie or catnap. Sophie especially appreciated the cozy atmosphere. Apparently, Hardison was making this his second home.

The kitchen was Hardison's idea originally, but his _idea_ of a kitchen was far too much microwave and not nearly enough stovetop. When the team started pestering Eliot for food, because Hardison had raved on and on about his stuffed mushrooms, Eliot agreed to cook _occasionally_ if Hardison redid the kitchen to his specifications. Truthfully Eliot didn't really mind the cooking, and it was becoming a lot more often than "occasionally." It was nice to cook for someone other than himself, which didn't happen much when he was freelancing. And besides, the rest of the team with the possible exception of Sophie would never eat anything healthy if he didn't!

Eliot was taking inventory of the paltry contents of the refrigerator, and trying to decide what he could make for a light dinner when he heard Hardison call out his farewells. Nate remained silent as he followed Hardison out the door, locking it behind them. Time to go talk to Parker.

* * *

_"Stir that slowly, don't slosh it!" Eliot didn't mind helpin' Mama in the kitchen. Well, most of the time he didn't. And today was one of those times. It was raining, and too muddy outside to play, and he was helpin' Mama mix a batter for one of her special cakes._

_Mama sold cakes and pies and eggs from their chickens and extra vegetables from their garden to supplement Daddy's income from the hardware store he owned. Daddy worked long days and the store was never closed except Sundays and holidays. But that was OK because Daddy was always home nights, and he spent the Sundays and holidays with Mama and Eliot and Lizzie and not everyone's daddy did that._

_They weren't rich, but they weren't poor either. Mama and Daddy said they were "comfortable." And Daddy worked hard so they could stay "comfortable." Mama worked hard too, baking and gardening and keeping house so Eliot and Lizzie could enjoy just being kids. So they wouldn't have to worry about where their next meal would come from, or if they could stay in their house another month._

_They had neighbors who had to worry about things like that, and that was why Eliot was helping Mama bake a special surprise birthday cake for the twins down the street._

_"What color frosting do you think they'd like, Eliot?" Mama held the bowl as Eliot scooped the batter into the cake tins. And Eliot thought that maybe they should get every color, since this would be the very first birthday cake they ever had. And he just didn't understand how that kind of thing happened. But Eliot liked how he felt when he was helpin' Mama help other people and he thought he might like to do this forever._

* * *

As expected, Parker's office door was locked. Eliot rapped on it. "I'm coming in, Parker."

He picked the lock with skill, though not with Parker's speed. He pushed the door open to see her wrapped tightly in a blanket and curled up on the end of the couch she had chosen for her office. She was very pale, and shivering just a little. _Ah hell_. They were probably in for a long night.

She glared up at him. "Go away."

"Nope. How are you feeling, besides cold?" He walked over and leaned against the side of her desk, arms crossed. "Talk to me, Parker."

Her glare deepened. "No. Go away." It was irritating how childish she could be sometimes, but losing his temper with Parker now would be the wrong move.

"Stop sulking, Parker. You and I both know you took some pills at the rehab, and now you're not. You're coming off of them, so it's normal to feel off, or sick. Now, talk to me."

"What do you know about it? You don't take drugs." Eliot bit back his irritation. He had to remember Parker could be very stubborn, but tended to respond better when reasoned with.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Parker. I've been a lot of places, seen a lot of things. _Done_ a lot of things. No, I don't take drugs. Not by choice." He let that hang for a moment. "But I know what they do to people, and what the withdrawal can do to people."

Parker had uncurled a little and sat up straighter, but she was still scowling at him "I didn't take them for very long."

"I know. Doesn't change how you feel right now, though. And you _look_ like hell." If he had said that to Sophie, he very well might have been dead, or at least really hurting, right now. But this was Parker, and Eliot was trying his best to be reasonable, even if _she_ was trying _her_ best to be a two-year-old!

"Why do you even care? It isn't your job. Your job is to hit people."

Eliot resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Barely. "It doesn't have to be my _job_ to care how you're feeling. And I do a lot more than hit people. Or did you forget our training sessions? _You_ pushed _me_ into that, and those are 'after hours', too." She looked away at that, almost like...almost like she thought she had hurt his feelings. Eliot sighed. _You don't know how to_ let _people care about you, do you?_ "I don't mind the sparring, Parker. Look, my job is the protection of this team. To me, that means more than just hitting people. It means getting you out in one piece, patching up your cuts and bruises, hell, even feeding you something more than sugar. It means making sure you're operating one hundred percent, so _you_ can do _your_ job. And since this happened to you on a job, _my_ job isn't done yet."

Parker was quiet a moment, then she glanced up at him. "You're not giving me a choice are you?"

"Sure you gotta choice. We can do this at your place, my place, or here." He ignored the fact it wasn't really a choice. He was not about to reveal where he lived any more than she would have.

Parker sighed and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. "Here."

"Good choice. Now, everyone else has left, they're taking the week off. Come out to the lounge and I'll make you some dinner." He pushed away from the desk and turned to leave.

"Not hungry, just want a shower and sleep."

"Okay, a shower will help you warm up. Then come out to the lounge. You need to eat something." Eliot returned to the kitchen, knowing he was taking a chance leaving her alone. She could easily bolt out of the office and the building and he'd have no hope of catching her. But, he sensed that she had really listened to him, and that she really didn't want to be alone right now. And his intuition told him she would stay if he didn't make her feel trapped.

TBC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Zanshin": the word Eliot uses in The Cross My Heart Job to refer to the goon's lack of situational awareness. It apparently has several slightly varied meanings, but this seems closest to what Eliot intended: "In karate, zanshin is the state of total awareness. It means being aware of one's surroundings and enemies, while being prepared to react." Quoted from Wikipedia, so take that for what it's worth.


	2. Chapter 2

_Eliot didn't mind that people underestimated him. He welcomed it, in fact. He had a sharp mind and picked most things up very quickly. He had been told once or twice that he could go far in life if he would only apply himself. Trouble was, he didn't have time for stuff like that. He took the time to make sure he got decent grades in high school, but the rest of his time was taken up with working at the barn, helping Lizzie with homework, tending Mama's garden (he still thought of it as Mama's), baking pies, and cooking dinner...And football, which was pretty much all he had just for himself._

_So, he preferred to let people think he wasn't as smart or wasn't as motivated as he really was, so they would stop pestering him to spend more time in studies, time that would cut into his responsibilities to his family. He did feel a little guilty about this because his parents had always worked hard and had always wanted their children to reach their full potential. But Dad was now too busy running the store to notice, and Mama...well Mama would have been shocked that he played down his cooking skills so the bosomy home economics teacher would spend more time with him. He felt very guilty about that one but, well, teenage hormones won out._

* * *

Twenty minutes after leaving Parker's office, while dicing carrots, celery and onions into tiny, precise pieces, Eliot began to question his decision to leave Parker unattended. He had heard the shower starting up down the hall about fifteen minutes ago, but nothing else since then, and was beginning to think she might have snuck out after all.

The bathrooms had been one of Hardison's genius ideas in the renovation of their floor of this building. He had taken the two standard multi-stall office bathrooms and had them each converted into full baths fit for any home. Sophie, who had very nearly squealed upon seeing them, had immediately claimed one for her and Parker's use only, and left the other for "the three Neanderthals" to share.

Ten minutes after adding chicken broth to the lightly-sauteed vegetables, and while methodically shredding a couple of boiled chicken breasts, Eliot debated the wisdom of just going down the hall and seeing for himself if Parker really was still here.

Ten minutes after that, he most certainly did NOT breathe a sigh of relief when he heard the shower turn off. His light chicken soup was gently bubbling and ready to go, and he was ladling it into bowls by the time Parker appeared, dressed in sweats and looking more haggard and drawn than when he left her.

She didn't say anything or even look up at him as he placed a bowl on the counter in front of her. She plopped down on a stool and stared at the bowl almost as if it was Sophie on stage, but gamely picked up her spoon without him having to press her further. Parker's diet of choice may have been straight sugar, but when Eliot cooked, Parker always tried what he put in front of her without complaint. At least she didn't act like a child in that regard.

Though Parker could seemingly put away more food in one sitting than any other two team members combined, she didn't seem to have much appetite tonight. When it became obvious Parker couldn't eat any more, Eliot took her bowl and wrapped it for later.

As Eliot finished his own dinner, he watched Parker wrap herself in her blanket from earlier and curl up on one end of the couch in the lounge. And he brooded. Parker was a lot like him, he had noticed in these long months they had worked together. Oh, it wasn't anything obvious, it was more...intangible. It was in her hyper-awareness in unfamiliar surroundings, in her aversion to being touched or even sitting too close to any of them sometimes. In her softness toward the orphans, the _innocents_ , in Serbia...There was no way she had a past anything like his and yet...yet, he recognized _something_ in her.

And so, he was pretty sure he had enough of an understanding that he could make a few basic assumptions. Assumption One: Parker needed to be in control of herself at all times. Sure she jumped off buildings, but he had watched her while she checked her gear. She was meticulous, not reckless. She had a tendency to stab people with cutlery, but that was when she was cornered, panicky. It was a reaction, not an action. Assumption Two: willingly taking a drug would be willingly giving up control. Not gonna happen. Assumption Three: the antidepressants hadn't been her choice.

So that left the question of _why?_ And the only answer he could come up with was: Hardison's fault. With a few exceptions, Hardison created all their aliases for jobs. In this case, he had given Nate an alias with an alcohol addiction to keep him close to Hurley. He had made Parker a kleptomaniac, put her in a different wing so she'd have more excuse to wander the halls between her room and the dayroom where the therapy groups met. Eliot wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he read somewhere that antidepressants were used to treat kleptomania. If _Eliot_ vaguely remembered reading that, then _Hardison_ , with his infinitely annoying obsession with research, should have known better and figured something else out. Was it the kid's idea of a joke? Eliot was going to be making a very early phone call tomorrow morning.

Shoving his anger down deep for Parker's benefit, Eliot cleaned up the dinner preparations, then joined her on the couch. He was surprised to see her still awake and just staring at the blank television screen, curled up tighter than a frozen cat. It was truly extraordinary just how small she could make herself, almost like she really did want to disappear. "Thought you wanted to sleep?"

"Not yet." But she wasn't interested in the remote when he offered it to her. He flicked the television on, looking for something worth watching among Hardison's forty-five million channels.

"I turned the heat up in here. Feel any warmer?" A shrug and Parker burrowed deeper into the corner of the couch. Eliot finally settled on a showing of the classic western, _Shane_ , and though Parker grimaced every time a horse came on screen, she didn't object. Eliot wasn't entirely surprised that as the movie wore on, Parker gradually uncurled from her corner and, when she thought he wasn't paying attention, crept ever so slowly across the couch toward him. He deliberately ignored her and she eventually pressed up against his side, apparently seeking further warmth. She already looked half-asleep and Eliot was willing to oblige, he just needed to adjust his arm...and drape it over her shoulders to get more comfortable. But no sooner had he settled his arm over her than he was rewarded with a very pointy elbow to the ribs as Parker shoved frantically away from him and all the way back to the other end of the couch.

"Damnit Parker! You're the one who got all _cuddly_ with _me!_ " He sat up and leaned forward, rubbing at the stinging pain in his side. _That _was gonna leave a bruise.__

____

She didn't look at him, just pulled her blanket tighter around herself. "You're warm."

"Well, yeah, I kinda figured that was why. I was trying to help you get more comfortable." He checked his fingers for blood. That was a _sharp_ elbow!

"It's just...the last time..."

"The last time, what?" Did she mean the time he had picked her up in the hospital hallway? She hadn't reacted well to that at all, but they had reached an understanding and moved on. Or he thought they did. She had come to him afterward, asking for some self-defense instruction to avoid scenarios like that in the future. That instruction was going pretty well, Parker was handling the hands-on aspect without too much trouble. There were times when he needed to back down and give her nerves a break, or call it a day, though that was happening less and less often now, and she was showing a lot of trust in him. Trust Eliot _never_ intended to violate. Surely, an arm around the shoulders on the couch when she didn't feel well should have been safe?

She hadn't answered him. "Parker, the last time, what? Did someone hurt you?" _Was it me?_

Still silence. _Ah, hell_. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Hardison had damn well take it real slow if he wanted to have any chance of courting her. Like, the loser in a snail race slow. Body armor might be a good idea, too.

Parker was shivering, and Eliot wasn't sure if it was only from cold. "Hey, you know I'd never hurt you, right?" Silence. "Parker, tell me you _know_ that." Finally, a nod, and Parker seemed to relax a little bit. She looked utterly exhausted, and he knew from some bitter experience that her nerves were probably shot all to hell. Just this afternoon she had been higher than a kite, no inhibition. Now it probably felt like she had jumped from a building and her rigging snapped.

"Hey, if you want to try this again, I promise I won't put my arm around you, okay?" Eliot settled back into his seat and returned his attention to the movie. Best to just let Parker decide what she was comfortable with. It took a few minutes, but she eventually moved back over and leaned up against him again. He shifted a little, very slowly, to give her more of his chest to lean against, and she pulled the blanket higher up over her shoulder as she burrowed deeper against him. Apparently, he was going to be her hot water bottle. It was a little awkward sitting that way, but if it made Parker comfortable, he would deal with it. After all, he had slept in much worse positions, in much worse places.

Parker seemed to be swinging back to "clingy" now. She rested her head under his chin and, to his great surprise, whispered "I trust you." Thoroughly bemused now, Eliot wrapped his arms loosely around her, as gently as if she were a priceless vase.

* * *

_"It's just a cold, Sweetheart. Get some sleep, and I'll have Mrs. Morris from down the street stay with you tomorrow. I have to be at the store and Eliot has to be at school." Twelve-year-old Eliot watched from the doorway as Daddy tucked Lizzie in and kissed her goodnight. Daddy wasn't doing it right. It wasn't that he didn't care, but that he didn't really know what Mama used to do. It was Lizzie's first cold since Mama...he didn't want to think about that. Lizzie had been weepier than she usually was when sick and Daddy had been patient, but he just didn't get it._

_Eliot waited until Daddy went down the hall to call Mrs. Morris, then went into his sister's room and sat on the edge of her bed. She wasn't asleep yet, and he could see a few tear tracks on her cheeks._

_"I miss Mama," she whispered._

_"Yeah, me too." Eliot almost felt like he wanted to be weepy, too. But he was too old for that. "You want some of Mama's tea?"_

_Lizzie sniffled and nodded, and Eliot left to make some. Mama had a special herbal tea that worked wonders on colds, and Eliot knew how to make it just like Mama had. They were low on honey, so Eliot made a note for himself to add two peach pies to the batch he was going to bake this weekend. Mr. Jennings, a beekeeper who lived a few blocks away, used to trade Mama honey for pies. Eliot kept up with Mama's customers because, while Daddy's store paid the bills, it was Mama's extra income that had kept them "comfortable," and he wanted that for Lizzie at least._

_He took the tea to Lizzie and helped her sit up, sliding himself in behind her to lean against the headboard. Lizzie breathed better when sick if she was propped up a little bit. That was something Daddy didn't know, because it was always Mama who sat up with her. Daddy had to be up early to open the store, anyway._

_Lizzie finished her tea and leaned back against Eliot and they just sat a while, and talked quietly about Mama, Eliot directing the conversation to happier memories. Finally, Lizzie fell asleep and Eliot dozed, ignoring the uncomfortable position he was in against the hard headboard. And if he got in trouble at school the next day for falling asleep in class, twice, Eliot didn't mind. Because that's what you did for family._

* * *

Sometime after the movie ended and Eliot had let himself doze off, Parker woke, pushing up and away from him again. Leery of the last time, Eliot let go of her immediately and just watched as she struggled upright. But he realized she wasn't pulling away from him in fear, she needed to...vomit. On the floor. Well, he had been expecting that sooner or later, and better the floor than him.

Moving slowly and deliberately, making sure she could see him in her peripheral vision, he reached over and pulled her hair back with one hand. With the other, he gently tugged her hairband off her wrist and secured a loose ponytail. He figured she wouldn't accept any comforting words or back rubs right now, so he just retrieved a small trashcan from the end of the couch. Her blanket had slipped off to the floor when she sat up, and had caught most of the mess, so he bundled it up, and placed the trashcan in front of her.

By now she had thoroughly emptied her stomach and had been reduced to dry heaves. He waited it out with her, wordlessly, until that also subsided and she simply sat slumped forward, like a crumpled rag. It seemed she never did anything halfway.

"Feel any better?"

A slow shake of the head. "Dizzy, like I still have to puke." Still moving deliberately and where she could see him, Eliot reached a hand out to brush her forehead and cheek, gauging her temperature. Feverish, but not dangerously so.

Eliot pulled a clean throw off one of the armchairs and draped it over her shoulders, then went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of cool water, which he pressed into her slightly trembling hand, and a damp cloth to wipe her face. While she did so, and _damnit_ he hated this timid, quiet, and compliant Parker, he wiped up the rest of the mess on the floor, gathered up the soiled blanket, and returned to the kitchen.

Sophie had insisted upon the addition of a small laundry room when it became obvious the team was spending more and more time at the offices, during and between jobs. It was becoming a second home for more than just Hardison, apparently. Even Eliot had spent a night or two sleeping on the couch in his office, for the sake of convenience. Now, as he tossed the blanket in the washer and set the cycle, Eliot silently thanked Sophie's insistence on domestic touches.

* * *

_Daddy had asked Eliot once if he would mind doing a few extra chores here and there. Laundry, dishes, just an extra night or two every week, since Mama wasn't there to do them, and Daddy had to run the store. The store paid the bills, but it was too small to hire another employee so Daddy ran it alone. Eliot didn't mind. Lizzie did her own share of the chores, but she was only seven and Eliot wanted her to enjoy being a kid, and not have to worry about too many things. Neither Daddy nor Eliot ever mentioned that the "extra night or two" gradually became every night, and the chores were in addition to his job at the barn, homework, cooking, baking, gardening, feeding the chickens, any number of other things. Eliot suspected Daddy felt guilty about it, but he didn't ever mention that, either._

* * *

Eliot returned to the kitchen, filled the kettle and set it to boil, then pulled down the small stash of tea he kept here. His was stacked on the left-hand side of the cabinet while Sophie's stash took up the right-hand side. After a few small but intense skirmishes in what Hardison now referred to as The Great Los Angeles Tea War, Eliot and Sophie had reached an agreement: Respect my tea and I will respect yours.

Coffee tended to be Eliot's go-to morning drink, especially after...well, there was a reason he was sometimes grumpier than usual. But there were teas Eliot simply enjoyed drinking, and others that were medicinal. He pulled out a chamomile blend.

While waiting for the water to heat, Eliot watched Parker over the counter. She looked so small, fragile, miserable, and completely unlike herself. He thumped his fists on the counter and turned away. Damnit, this should not have happened! Hardison was gonna get a piece of his mind, shake up his happy vacation a little bit.

Eliot brewed the tea strong, then diluted it with cool water so it was the perfect temperature to take out to Parker. He crouched on the floor in front of her, and handed her the mug, "Here, sip this slowly, it'll settle your stomach."

She held the mug as if it might bite her, and he couldn't blame her. After a bout of vomiting like that, you felt like you never wanted to eat or drink anything ever again.

"D'ya want something to help you sleep?" Eliot didn't take anything pharmaceutical if he could avoid it. Being under any kind of influence, having his reactions dulled could mean death in his line of work. And now, he had more than just himself to think about. He couldn't afford to be hindered in any way. Even so, he kept a few necessities in his "First Aid Kit On Steroids" as Hardison had once called it. _He_ might avoid taking things, but if one of the team needed something, it was there.

"I don't do drugs." Parker seemed suddenly suspicious and scowled down at the mug still in her hand. Then she met Eliot's eyes.

"No, I wouldn't do that to you. All that's in there is ginger, chamomile, and mint. It'll calm your stomach, help you relax a little, but it won't make you sleep. Try to drink the rest of it, slowly. I'll be right back." He returned a few moments later with a load of pillows and blankets, which he deposited on the couch next to her. As he took the now-empty mug from Parker's hands and crouched again in front of her, he asked, "If you don't like taking drugs, why did you take those?"

"That Dr. Frank at the rehab cornered me, said it was part of the therapy." She shrugged. "I didn't want to blow my cover. He said it was perfectly safe. He said, 'Antidepressants are taken by twenty million Americans every day to treat a variety of behavioral disorders.'" Eliot scoffed at that, and almost missed what she whispered next. "Then it just felt...good. You know? I was...happy?"

"That a statement or a question?" Another shrug from Parker, as if she weren't quite sure herself.

"Okay, Parker. One last question, and then I'll drop it. Why didn't you just palm the pills? I know you could've."

"I guess...I thought it would make me more normal. That's what one of my foster parents said once. 'You need to be more normal.' I didn't like them then, either."

Eliot rolled his eyes at that. "'Normal' isn't normal for you, Parker. There's nothing wrong with you."

"Don't do that again, please?" At his questioning look, Parker continued. "Like before, when you thought I was afraid of you. You started acting like...not you."

Eliot shook his head, "Okay then, maybe there _is_ something wrong with you." To which she finally smiled. Yeah, definitely beyond exhausted.

"All right Parker, think you can lie down now? I want to try something else to help you sleep, if you'll let me. No drugs, I promise."

She settled on her side, stretched out on the couch and facing him, still kneeling on the floor. She watched him sideways, suspiciously, as he reached for her arm, but made no move to resist. He kept his grip and touch light enough that she could pull away at any time, and he explained what he was doing as he pressed firmly into a spot on the underside of her wrist.

"I picked up a lot of things over the years, you know. Always good to learn things, never know when it might come in handy. There was this Chinese woman I met once, this little spitfire who gave the best massages..." And maybe there was a little too much leer in his grin then, because Parker rolled her eyes.

He switched to the other wrist and at Parker's expectant look, continued his explanation. "It's called accupressure, like accupuncture but _without_ the needles, old part of Chinese medicine. Anyway, doin' this is supposed to help you sleep."

"Does it really work?" Parker sounded like she was trying to hold back a yawn.

"Dunno, never had a use for any _sleep_ while I was with her..." Another eye roll. "Well, does it _feel_ like it's working?"

"Mmmm hmmm..." And whether it actually did work, or exhaustion was simply catching up to her, Parker was having trouble keeping her eyes open now. Eliot tucked her arm back up on the couch and pulled the blankets over her.

"You're really good at this, you know," she whispered, even as her eyes closed.

"What's that, Sweetheart?"

"Caring." He sat back on his heels, and watched as Parker's breathing evened out into the rhythm of sleep. Well hell. It seemed that, despite his best efforts to keep these people at arm's length, the little thief had snuck past his defenses.

* * *

_Eliot didn't mind that he was getting a new baby brother or sister. Mama and Daddy seemed to think he would, but he was just excited about the fun they would have. Mama and Daddy had talked about "responsibility" and what a big brother was expected to do...All he could think of was that he would get to teach the new baby everything he knew!_

_Eliot stood in the doorway of Mama's hospital room and he was suddenly a little terrified. Mama was holding the most delicate-looking thing Eliot had ever seen. Daddy gently guided him into the room to stand next to Mama's bed, and Mama reached over and placed a sleeping baby girl in Eliot's outstretched arms. Daddy stood behind him, supporting his arms, but he needn't have bothered. Eliot would not have dropped her for anything. Not even if a big ol' stinkin' bear burst into the room and tried to eat them. He would have punched that bear right in the nose without even waking his sister!_

TBC...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eliot picking Parker up in a hospital hallway is from The Snow Job episode, and my story The Finding Trust Job.
> 
> The last little paragraph contains a roundabout shout out to the awesome Leverage fanfic, A Walk on the Wild Side. I was working on a very early outline of this story while reading that one, and when I needed a villain suitable for a five-year-old Eliot, this one presented itself.
> 
> Also, it is pure dumb chance that Eliot's sister here and a certain little girl in TheTetrarch's stories share a name. We already discussed it and agreed it's an awesome name.


	3. Chapter 3

_To Lizzie, who was barely seven, "cancer" seemed like a real live toothy fire-breathing drooling monster that lived under her bed, or in her closet, just waiting to gobble her up._

_When Lizzie had a nightmare, she usually went to Mama and Daddy's room, and one of them would comfort her and put her back to bed. But as Mama had more and more bad nights of her own, and Daddy got less and less sleep because he sat up with her, Lizzie would often be too scared to join them. On those nights, she would go to Eliot, who wasn't getting much sleep either, because he knew more about what was going on than Lizzie did. Those nights, Eliot would hear his bedroom door creak open and the soft padding of feet, then the gentle shift and creak of his bed as Lizzie climbed up next to him. He didn't mind, and sometimes he didn't even pretend to be asleep._

_If Daddy could get Mama settled, he'd come and get Lizzie and take her to see Mama for reassurance. If it was one of Mama's really bad nights, Lizzie would stay with Eliot until morning._

* * *

The next morning, Eliot woke early as usual, though not by his choice. He had ended up crashing in one of the armchairs, feet up on the coffee table, because he hadn't wanted to leave Parker alone. Her sleep had become restless, occasionally plagued by nightmares, though most of the time she settled if Eliot simply called out to her. The last nightmare, the one that woke him fully, was more intense, and Parker didn't wake when Eliot called to her. He became more concerned when she screamed out a name, and the sheer anguish in her voice had him reaching to shake her shoulder. He was prepared for the fist that flew toward his face and caught it, holding it as gently as he could until he saw recognition in Parker's eyes, before letting go. Parker struggled upright, wiping at the tears on her cheeks, then sat forward, head in hands, trying to get her breathing under control.

"Need to throw up again?" Parker shook her head, sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve, but didn't offer anything else. She looked as shaken as Eliot had ever seen her, even worse than when she had recounted the killer horse incident. Against his better judgment, and not really expecting an answer, he asked, "Who's Mattie?"

She did answer, though, without looking at him and in a voice almost devoid of emotion. Almost. "My brother. He's dead." And before Eliot could voice his surprise, she pushed off the couch and stumbled down the hallway to the bathroom.

She emerged some time later, red-eyed, but showered and dressed. It wasn't even six yet, and Eliot would have liked to let her sleep longer, but he knew, again from bitter experience, that wasn't very likely after a nightmare like that.

The refrigerator was nearly empty, so he scrambled the few eggs that were left, plain, hoping Parker could keep them down. She managed only a few bites, so he ate the rest, then left her ensconced on the couch with blankets, apple juice, trash can, and the television remote, while he took his own shower.

"I'm gonna pick up some things from my place and some groceries. Anything you want?" Parker just shook her head. This was worrying, she almost invariably demanded a box of cereal or chocolate donuts or fortune cookies when asked. He reached out a hand to her forehead again and received a half-hearted glare, though she didn't pull away. She was still a little warm, but no worse than last night. "Hey, you gonna be all right while I'm gone?"

Parker nodded slowly, but didn't look away from the television as she surfed the channels.

"My phone's on, Parker, call if you need anything." Another slow nod. Parker hadn't offered anything more about her nightmares, and he was pretty sure that if she had been in a better state of mind she wouldn't have even answered his query about the name. As far as she was concerned it never happened, and Eliot would definitely let it lie. He regarded her from the doorway for a few moments and realized there actually _was_ something worse than a hyper Parker.

* * *

_Mama used to rise early with Daddy. They would have breakfast and coffee and discuss the news together, then Daddy would go off to open the store. Mama would get Eliot and Lizzie up, and feed them, and send them off to school. Now, Daddy still rose early, but he ate alone. He made his own lunch, and school lunches for the kids, and took his coffee and newspaper with him to the store._

_Eliot got himself and Lizzie up and fed, and walked her to school. Most nights, Eliot also made dinner. He didn't mind because he was the better cook, though he suspected Daddy felt guilty about it. But Daddy needed to keep the store running, so he still worked long hours. He closed a little earlier on Friday and Saturday nights, so he could make dinner, or bring something home. Eliot let him, because it let Daddy feel a little less guilty._

* * *

There was a small organic grocery store only a few blocks from the Leverage offices, and Eliot lived only a few more blocks farther than that. It was a lovely early morning and Eliot chose to walk rather than drive. His...not 'paranoia' as Hardison liked to call it, but healthy constant vigilance, drove him to constantly alter his routes and travel methods. Besides, he could take care of some other business as he walked.

Last night, he had determined to call Hardison early and chew him out for his irresponsible lack of research in creating Parker's alias. If he was in Chicago visiting his Nana, as Eliot had told Nate to tell him to do, it would be barely eight-thirty in the morning. Excellent. If he had stayed in LA, six-thirty. Even better.

But when the kid answered on the second ring, sounding not at all as though he had just been woken up, Eliot's surprise made him state, quite unnecessarily, "You're awake."

"Yeah, the kids get me up early. You need something, El?"

Eliot stopped in his tracks. "... _kids?_ "

"Yeah, Nana's in her sixties, but she still takes in any foster kid who needs her. They love when I visit." As Eliot habitually scanned the area around himself, and started walking again, he had a sudden horrific image in his mind's eye: A legion of mini-Hardisons unleashed upon the world. He shook his head and reminded himself that despite being a foster kid, Hardison was happy, healthy, and mostly well-adjusted. It wouldn't hurt if more kids could grow up like him.

_Except_... "What the hell were you thinkin' man?! Your little joke with Parker's alias is _not_ funny!"

"Joke?..." Hardison tried to interject as Eliot steamrolled on, his pace increasing as his anger flared up.

"Parker should never have been on drugs for a job!" Eliot took a breath and was ready to get settled into his tirade when the smartass kid actually dared raise his voice back to him.

"Hey, hey, hey...hold on a minute! I'm not ...sorry Nana, I'll take it outside. Yeah, work stuff..." Eliot heard a door click closed over the phone, then Hardison resumed. "I'm not as stupid as you like to think I am! I KNOW what those drugs do to people, I've seen enough of it in the kids that come through Nana's. I made sure NONE of our people would have to go through any of that!...See, it was all genius, really, when I made Sophie's..."

"Hardison..." Eliot was not in the mood for one of the kid's monologues right now. He stopped abruptly to admire the cuts of beef in a boutique butcher's window...and check the reflection of the street behind him.

"Ex _cuse_ you? If you'll _let_ me finish! It was all related to Sophie's cover. While on staff at Second Act, 'Dr. Tanner' could work on a study on talk therapy, so she 'requested' a group of patients who weren't prescribed _anything_. Because, if YOU were as smart as you think you are, you'd know alcoholics sometimes get prescribed medications, too. You know, for depression, stuff like that? I mean c'mon, do you think we wanted _Hurley_ on drugs? It was hard enough to get through to him sober! Now...Nate...that might be an idea..."

" _Hardison_..."

"So I put notations in our people's records...grabbed a coupla random real patients who also weren't prescribed anything...put 'em all in Sophie's group..."

" _Hardison_..."

" _Stop_ that, man, I'm not an idiot!"

" _Hardison!_ If you're right, then why was _Parker_ taking _antidepressants?_ " Finally, the kid shut up for a minute.

"I...I kinda thought...you know, maybe she just...took them...'Cause she _takes_ things..."

"She doesn't do drugs, man. She wouldn't like not being in control of herself." Eliot realized he was scowling maybe a little too fiercely now, as several pedestrians approaching him abruptly crossed to the other side of the street.

"Oh, so you're best buds now, huh, know everythin' about each other? Wait, why are you even calling me now? Is Parker okay?"

"We're stayin' at the office. She's been sick." He rounded a corner, paused a moment to allow any possible tails a chance to reveal themselves.

"Sorry, man. I was tryin' to keep that sorta thing from happenin'." Hardison sounded as though he meant it.

Eliot made a conscious effort to relent, a little. "Parker said Dr. Frank told her it was part of the therapy... _If_ you're right about those records, I wanna know if he or someone else at Second Act changed or ignored hers."

"'Course I'm right, but I'll do some digging."

"Yeah, okay." Eliot had arrived at the grocer's, and was ready to end the call, but Hardison spoke up again.

"Hey, why are YOU with her at the office? Nate gave us all the week off...because you _told_ him to, didn't you? Why didn't you just tell us, man? I woulda stayed to help."

"Would _you_ have wanted everyone hoverin' over you while you were pukin' your guts out?" He could almost visualize Hardison's queasy face at that thought. Kid was probably a sympathetic puker.

"But you're okay, huh? You and Parker gettin' all do-mestic, comparin' the best ways to fork people, and discussin' books, and weavin' lil doilies an'..." Hardison's apparent jealousy had a twinge of amusement, but Eliot was not in the mood.

"You _crochet_ doilies...Damnit Hardison! If you don't shut up and get to hacking I will reach through this phone and rip out your tongue!" A young man exiting the grocery store gave him a wide berth, glancing back over his shoulder once or twice.

"I...I actually believe you could do that. Okay, getting to hacking. Call ya when I have somethi..." Eliot snapped his phone shut.

Intellectually, he knew blaming Hardison wouldn't fix anything right now. If there was any blame, it should be laid on Eliot himself. Damnit, he had never checked up on Parker! Nate had mentioned she refused to leave the rehab when he escaped with Hurley. When did Parker EVER give up a chance to crawl through air vents? And then Eliot had gotten distracted as the con wrapped up. No, he had gotten _complacent_. He had _assumed_ Parker was _fine_. Eliot yanked the door of the little market open a bit too harshly, setting the bell ringing wildly. At the cute young cashier's startled glance, he apologized gruffly, and without his usual charm.

* * *

_Sometimes Lizzie annoyed the HELL out of Eliot. He was pretty sure that was in the "little sister" job description though, so he didn't mind too much. Instead of completely losing his temper with her, Eliot just found ways to annoy her right the hell back. One of those ways was making her wait while he flirted with Aimee at her daddy's barn. Lizzie loved the horses, so Eliot would bring her with him after school on the days he worked there. He had picked up the job for a little extra money for himself. Dad seemed to think he would come to work at the store after high school, but Eliot was sick and tired of that damned store. He was only fifteen though, so he still had time to think._

_But he was finding it hard to think today while cleaning out the stalls as Lizzie pestered him mercilessly to put her on one of the horses. Mr. Martin boarded and trained horses for people, gave a few riding lessons, and started a few of his own colts to sell, but he talked often of moving to Kentucky, where the real action was. He wanted to raise Thoroughbreds for the track._

_Mr. Martin would sometimes put Lizzie up on an old schooling horse and lead her around, but he wasn't at the barn right now, and neither was Aimee, so Eliot had no outlet for his frustration with Lizzie. Finally, he gave up and went to fetch Moose._

_Moose, named more for his girth than height, and his tendency to slump along, more interested in food than speed, was an ancient gelding of indeterminate breeding who had played babysitter to countless hot-headed colts over the years. He stood still and nearly asleep as Eliot lifted Lizzie onto his broad bare back, and needed a couple of strong tugs on his halter to get him moving. Eliot led him in slow circles around the corral and Lizzie was thoroughly enjoying herself and laughing delightedly when the mangy neighborhood cur decided to pay a visit, and bark up a storm._

_Even good, solid, ancient, babysitter horses can spook and that's exactly what Moose did, pulling his lead out of Eliot's lax fingers before he could react, and tearing off across the corral, and out the open gate. Eliot didn't have time to berate himself for leaving the gate open, all he could focus on was the sight of Lizzie sliding off Moose's back and hitting the ground hard. And not moving._

* * *

When Eliot returned to the office, arms laden with his battered old Army duffle and several bags of groceries, he found Parker curled in the same spot on the couch, burrito-wrapped in her blanket and looking queasier than when he had left. He dropped the duffle by the door, and placed the grocery bags on the counter, then returned to her side and crouched down. "Eggs didn't stay put, huh? How long ago?"

"Just after you left, few hours? But I finished the apple juice after that. And napped. So far, so good."

He checked her fever again with back of his hand, no higher and her eyes were clear, but she was still awfully pale. "Were you sick at the rehab while you were taking the pills?"

"Don't remember. It was all foggy, don't remember if I ever ate." _Great._

" _Parker!_..." But there was no point in berating her for that now. "I'm going to make you some more tea, and heat up a little of last night's soup. You need to keep something down." He stalked back to the kitchen, still angry with himself for not checking up on her.

As he was reheating Parker's soup from the night before, in a _saucepan_ on the _stove_ , not in Hardison's affront-to-all-that-is-good microwave, the kid called back.

"Hey Eliot," he sounded hesitant, probably expecting another tirade. "I think we might have something...hinky...going on here..."

"Care to define 'hinky' or do I haveta guess?" Eliot balanced his phone between his shoulder and ear as he stirred Parker's soup, removed it from the stove, and carefully poured it into a mug, then set it aside to cool.

"'Hinky' as in Parker's record isn't the only one that was changed. Whoever did it didn't know or care to cover his tracks, but no one else woulda noticed. Once I found the change in Parker's record I knew what to look for, and there's at _least_ twenty other current patients and who knows how many former patients who had the same change."

"Okay, what's it _mean_ Hardison?" Eliot strained out the ginger-chamomile tea then gathered both mugs and took them out to Parker who accepted them unenthusiastically, and with a questioning glance at Eliot's phone. Eliot held up a finger for silence and returned to the kitchen. He pulled out the ingredients to start prep work on his own lunch for later.

"It looks like someone grabbed random patient records and switched them all to the same drug protocol. Doesn't say what though, just a code number. Looks like someone's pet project, probably Dr. Frank's, since he's the only one on staff who would have the authority to change the records."

"So what the hell is this 'pet project' of his?" Eliot was really fuming now, and the heirloom tomato he was slicing was suffering for it.

"That I'm still working on. Like I said, there was only a code number, not a drug name in the files. But El, I started some followup checking on the former patients...a lot of 'em are dead."

"Dead? How?" Tomato finished, Eliot set to slicing a sweet Maui onion.

"I only found about thirty former patients so far. A few were 'normal deaths' you know, car accident, homicide...there's a coupla missing people, but they have histories of relapses, believed to be living on the streets...several 'natural causes' that could mean almost anything...but there's a lot of liver failures. One or two wouldn't be so strange, some of these people were lifelong alcoholics. But five? Outta thirty?" By now, Eliot was perhaps too viciously mixing the garlic and green onion into his cream cheese.

"El?..."

"Keep digging, I'm gonna call Nate." He hung up, wrapped the ingredients for his sandwich and put them in the refrigerator for later.

* * *

_As Lizzie got older, Eliot enjoyed teaching her everything Mama had taught him, with a few additions. She liked cooking, though she'd probably never be as good as Eliot. She had been tending the garden with Mama and Eliot from the time she could walk, and that was still the place she felt closest to Mama. And she loved, absolutely loved, the chickens. So, Eliot let her take on more of the chores as she got older, and he made sure she knew how to throw a punch. And in addition to his job at the barn, Eliot worked a little in the store with Dad. He still felt it was his responsibility to protect Lizzie however, and so he kept the mounting tension between him and Dad to himself._

_Despite his protectiveness of Lizzie, she was growing up strong and independent. She was so much like Mama, and Eliot made sure she remembered the good times, both with Mama, and without. Because even though Dad threw himself into running that damn store, he still tried his best to be a dad. Thing was, he just never really learned how because Mama had taken care of so much while she was alive._

_Dad put his time and energy into the store because it paid the bills, and providing that way for his family was a man's responsibility. Eliot understood this, but what he really didn't understand was why Dad thought Eliot needed to follow in his footsteps. They still lived comfortably, and Lizzie could very likely get a scholarship to veterinary school if she stuck with that dream. Eliot thought he might just want to start a family of his own someday, maybe even with Aimee, but what had really been pulling at him now was enlistment. There had always been a part of him that wanted to get out and change the world._

TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

After ending his call with Hardison, Eliot returned to the lounge and sat in the armchair next to Parker's end of the couch. He was pleased to see she had finished the tea, and was sipping slowly at the soup. She already looked somewhat better than she had when he returned, and was staring at him expectantly.

"That was Hardison. He told me he set up your alias and the aliases for Nate and Hurley so that you wouldn't be given any drugs at the rehab."

Parker frowned. "So I messed up?"

Eliot sighed. "No, Parker, ya didn't. Hardison should have mentioned something about it to us all...But in all honesty, I messed up when I didn't check up on you. And when the team gets back together, we're all gonna have a talk about lines you _don't ever_ cross during jobs. In fact, we should've had a conversation about this already. You shouldn't have felt like you had to take the drugs to keep your cover intact, or protect the job. Something like that, it's not worth risking your health over."

Parker nodded and set down her mug. "What other lines?"

"Anything that might affect your health like this, or situations that put you into too much danger, or something you would find morally wrong." At Parker's expectant silence, Eliot elaborated, "Even at his most driven, do you think Nate would ever expect Sophie to do anything more than _flirt_ with a mark?"

Parker considered that for a moment, and shook her head, but then she blindsided him. "But what about you? You're always getting hurt. That affects _your_ health!"

"Not always, and I told you: my job is protecting this team. And if I get hurt doing it, that's part of the job. I can handle it."

"But you said yourself you do more than that. You always blame yourself if one of us gets hurt anyway, and you always take care of us but you never let us take care of you..." Eliot was about to growl her into silence, but she pressed on. "AND you never ask Nate for time off between jobs for _yourself_ , even when it's obvious you're still hurting, and..."

Now, Eliot did growl a warning, _"Parker..."_

"So, apparently those _lines_ apply to us but not you?" There were spots of color forming high on her cheeks, and she was eyeing her trash can. Eliot was concerned she had worked herself up enough to be sick again, so he decided to end the conversation now. They could hash things out to her heart's content later, when she was well.

"Pretty much, yeah. It comes with the territory. I can handle it." She regarded him dubiously, but Eliot really didn't want to go down this road with her. Not right now. Not ever. He changed the subject before she could try to rally another argument.

"Anyway, what happened is Dr. Frank _knowingly_ lied to you, and he may be responsible for hurtin' a lot of other people. Think we should do somethin' about it?" Parker grinned at that, but it was a shadow of her usual, and he had the unsettling feeling that she wasn't going to let that conversation slide forever. Still, the thought of some revenge was a pleasant distraction for her. Parker was catching on pretty quick to their concept of justice.

Satisfied the matter was dropped for the time being, Eliot pulled out his phone, dialed Nate's number and turned on the speaker. After eight rings a muffled, groggy, and thoroughly hungover voice answered. "Yeah, Eliot. Ever'thing okay? How's Parker?"

"Sorry man, did I disturb your beauty sleep?" He made sure Nate could hear the gruff chuckle in his voice.

There was a rustle and thumping sound, then the _distinctive_ clinking of liquor bottles rolling off a nightstand onto the floor. "Eliot, you better have a damn good reason for interrupting the vacation YOU insisted on."

"Yeah. Parker's doin' okay, but I think we mighta stumbled onto something going on at Second Act." He glanced over at Parker, who now had her "briefing face" on. "Parker said Dr. Frank pressed her into taking those pills, but Hardison had set up all your aliases so you wouldn't have to. He's doing some more digging, but it looks like Frank's running some kinda pet project off the books. And it may be killin' people."

Eliot could nearly hear the wheels creak to life in Nate's mind. He sounded a lot more awake and sober when he spoke again. "How did we miss this?"

"The rehab center and Dr. Frank were only tools we were usin' to get through to Hurley. We had no reason to be checking _them_ out."

"And Hardison would have had no reason to hack any deeper into their system than planting the files. So we...we stumbled onto this by accident. Again." They could hear the rustling of Nate getting out of bed and digging around for clothes.

Parker leaned toward Eliot's phone, "We have to do something about it!"

Eliot grimaced, "You don't haveta yell into the phone, Parker, the speaker's on!"

"Oh uh...hi, Parker. How are you feeling?" There was more thumping over the phone, and a muffled curse.

"Pukey. Did you make any progress on your intimacy and trust issues?"

"Parker, quiet! Nate, if this is killing people, we have to do something about it, soon. But we need more information, and we've all been seen at Second Act as visitors, or patients who have since checked out. I don't think we'll be able to run a con on this guy."

"We may be able to do something with Sophie's 'Dr. Tanner' alias. Let me call her, she should have landed by now. Then I'll catch up with Hardison and get back to you."

* * *

_Mr. Martin had been coming up the long drive right about the time Moose took off through the open gate. Eliot waved him down, managing to keep his fear under control though his heart was in his throat and he felt like he would never breathe again. Mr. Martin determined Lizzie was in no immediate danger of dying, and bundled them both into his dilapidated truck to rush them to the hospital, yelling for his wife to call Eliot's dad at the store._

_Once they had arrived at the hospital though, and Lizzie had been spirited away for X-rays and bandages, Eliot had been sick to his stomach with guilt and nearly inconsolable. Mr. Martin had tried to get the story from him, but all Eliot could do was blame himself. Right now, he would give anything to go back in time and stand firm on telling Lizzie no...If Mama had been alive, she would have tanned his hide and given him a tongue lashing into next week. And he wouldn't have minded at all, he would have welcomed it if only it would have fixed Lizzie._

_Eliot had mostly calmed by the time Dad arrived in the waiting room. He had closed the store early and rushed to the hospital as soon as he got the call from Mrs. Martin. But Dad didn't even look angry._

_"I just talked to the doctor. Lizzie will be fine, just fractured her forearm, few bumps, nothin' else. She told me what happened."_

_"It was my fault." Eliot never made excuses, and he always took responsibility for his actions, just as Mama had always taught him._

_"Yeah, it was. But she told me you told her no and that she pressured you into it." Eliot couldn't meet his dad's eyes, he could only stare at the floor as he waited for the other shoe to drop. But it never did. "I think the way you're feeling right now, Eliot, is punishment enough. Don't you?"_

_Eliot shook his head, nothing could ever make up for him letting Lizzie get hurt. And there was something else, too. Eliot turned toward Mr. Martin. "I left the corral gate open, too. Moose took off."_

_"Ah, Moose'll be back. He's always wandering off, but he knows where the good food is. I'm just glad your sister is okay. Take tomorrow off, but I'll expect you back at the barn Saturday, alright?" Eliot wasn't sure he had heard correctly. He was pretty certain that when someone screwed up this badly, they were supposed to lose their job, at least. Mr. Martin smiled at him, though. "You've learned your lesson, right? This won't happen again?"_

_"Definitely not, sir."_

_"Good. And when Lizzie is feelin' better, maybe she'd like some real riding lessons. What do you think?" This was too much, Eliot was finding it hard to believe that he was getting off this easy. It just didn't match the guilt he felt. And Lizzie, Lizzie was going to be okay, but Eliot still owed her._

_"Yeah...I'll pay for 'em." Mr. Martin looked about to object, but Dad stopped him with a look. It wasn't that they thought of it as charity, just that Eliot always settled accounts. Dad said he was generous almost to a fault like Mama had been, but he preferred not to feel as though he owed anyone. Dad thanked Mr. Martin, then with a hand on his shoulder, he guided Eliot down the hall to gather Lizzie and head home._

* * *

Exactly seven minutes and forty-two seconds after he ended his call to Nate, Eliot's phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID; Sophie. Parker laughed at his grimace. Eliot took a moment to center himself and man up, then answered the phone with his most charming drawl. "Hello, darlin.'"

Eliot could swear the room temperature plummeted around him. _"Don't_ you try that cowboy charm on _me_ you thick-headed, overprotective, self-sacrificing..."

"Sophie, darlin', did you have a reason for callin'?" He might need to dig out that sheepskin jacket if this call lasted too long.

Now Eliot could feel Sophie's glare right through the phone, in fiery counterpoint to the ice in her words. "I _called_ to ask _why_ you thought it was _necessary_ to send us all away _mysteriously_ instead of just telling us that Parker was ill! We would have all been more than willing to stay and help you take care of her." Ah, the mothering Sophie...Parker wasn't the only one going through mood swings lately...Better keep that thought to himself.

"Sophie, dear, you woulda suffocated her." Parker seemed inordinately amused at this, but Sophie went deathly silent. Now the room temperature reminded him of that one retrieval job he had taken down south...way down south...who knew penguins were so territorial? "Did Nate fill you in?"

Sophie's next words bit as hard as that damned penguin had. "The basics. He's talking to Hardison now, but I wanted to find out from you if we should all come back to the office?"

Eliot glanced over at Parker. There was no way she was ready for another job. "Not yet. Nate knows we won't be able to run our usual game on this guy. We've all been seen at the rehab, so yours is the only intact alias we could possibly use. And Parker is out of this job completely." At that, Parker looked ready to object, but Eliot glared her into silence. "Wait to see what Nate comes up with, then we'll decide if we need to meet for a briefing."

Sophie sighed, and the room immediately thawed. "Tell Parker I...well, tell her I hope she feels better."

"Yeah, I will darlin'. Enjoy your shopping in Paris."

"I'm not in...Is that _all_ you think I..." Eliot snapped his phone shut. He was going to pay for that. Somewhere, somehow, Sophie was gonna get him. He made a mental note to hide his tea stash for the next few weeks. Or decades.

"Don't give me that look, Parker," Eliot growled at her sullen glare. "We agreed I get final say in safety matters, and you are not nearly well enough to be workin' a job."

Parker huffed. "Nate never actually _agreed_ to that."

"Well, _Nate_ has no say in it this time. You _are_ more than welcome to help us plan. And if there's a payout, you'll get your normal cut." Parker didn't reply, but her glare lessened somewhat.

* * *

Eliot spent the next few hours before lunch working out in the little gym he had set up in the offices. He remembered Hardison's dismay one morning, months ago, when he arrived to find the things he had stored in the big room had been moved out into the hall and replaced by training mats and all kinds of Eliot's "torture devices" as he'd called them. He'd stormed back down the hallway, complaining loudly, to the kitchen where Eliot was carving a roast beef. His complaints had stopped abruptly when Eliot turned with a raised eyebrow, carving knife and fork in hand. Hardison's eyes had widened, and he spluttered something about finding some other room to put his things in, then he retreated.

Today, Parker had followed Eliot into the gym. He didn't stop her because he had learned early on that a bored Parker was a destructive Parker, and he knew this forced inactivity must be chafing her to no end. He had no idea what she did during the team's downtime, though she had been spending some of it with Hardison. Whatever she did with the rest, Eliot was sure she was constantly moving. Eliot watched her try to work through a few easy stretches, but she was so off balance and becoming rather green again, that he was ready to bench her. She did it herself though, sliding down the wall to sit by the door. Sometimes, before or after training together, she would sit and watch him. It wasn't her usual creepy watching-people style, though. When she watched him practice, he could tell she was taking notes, observing closely what he did so she could improve. It didn't bother him at all.

Now though, she seemed distracted. He knew she was unhappy with being told she wasn't in on this job. Before Leverage, she had probably never worked with a team, so she had made all her own decisions. Following orders was a new concept for her. Eliot was pretty sure Nate wouldn't want to wait until she was well to do something about Dr. Frank. They were talking about people's lives this time, not their livelihoods. But he couldn't in good conscience clear Parker to work this job right now, whatever plan Nate came up with. She was still too nauseous and weak, her balance was off, and she hadn't slept or eaten well in who knew how long. They would just have to do this one without her.

He missed sparring with her today, though. She was quick and slinky, and now that she had more confidence and trust in Eliot, she wasn't afraid to fight dirty. Exactly what he needed to keep his reactions sharp. The goons he engaged during their jobs never fought according to the rules, either. Parker was becoming a welcome sparring partner, and Eliot found he was proud of her.

* * *

_Eliot couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Lizzie hitting the ground and not moving. And he remembered holding Lizzie as a baby, and his heart ached as he imagined how it would have broken Mama's heart if she knew how irresponsible he had been today. Even making Lizzie's favorite dinner tonight couldn't make up for it in Eliot's mind. Dad had wanted to pick something up to take home, but Eliot had insisted on cooking, and Dad just gave him an exasperated look._

_Eliot's door creaked open and a moment later, Lizzie climbed up on the bed next to him, as she hadn't done since the worst days of Mama's sickness. "Don't blame yourself El, I'm okay. It doesn't even hurt anymore." She waved her lime-green cast right in front of his face._

_Normally, he would have batted her arm away. Not tonight. "It's my fault. I let you get hurt. I'm supposed to look after you."_

_"But you always do! Remember that girl who was being mean to me and you taught me how to throw a punch?" She mimed punching him with her injured arm._

_Eliot glared at her, guilt forgotten for the moment. "Yeah, and you broke her nose and nearly got suspended! You forgot I also told you to never start a fight!"_

_"'Don't ever start a fight, but if the other guy does, make sure you finish it'!" She said in her best big-brother-Eliot voice. "And besides, I was finishing it! She swung first and I ducked like you said, and then I hit her! Molly saw it and she told the principal and they didn't suspend me!" Lizzie flopped over on her back beside Eliot and giggled, then said around a yawn, "it was fun today, riding a wild horse! Until I fell off anyway."_

_Now Eliot felt he could smile. "You're crazy, you know that?"_

* * *

Liquids seemed to settle well enough for Parker, so Eliot heated the last of the chicken soup for her lunch, along with more tea while he ate his favorite turkey-on-an-everything-bagel sandwich in the kitchen, in deference to her stomach. Eliot was growing restless, even his earlier workout had failed to dissipate his tension. He had never been very good at sitting around waiting, unless it was part of an actual job. Then he could wait as long as necessary. But waiting without a purpose, stuck in one place for too long, was...grating. He needed to be doing _something_. He had brought a few books from his place earlier, so he could catch up on some reading at least, while they waited for an update.

Parker was back in her spot on the couch, but without the blanket now, watching some marathon of nature shows, "Wolf Week," or whatever, in between dozing. She kept glancing at Eliot, who was growing more and more irritated and had to remind himself that at least she was sitting still and keeping food down. After one especially long, considering stare, Eliot growled, _"What, Parker?!"_ But she only returned her attention to the television with a satisfied expression, like she had proven a theory. There was _definitely_ something wrong with her!

He was saved from further headache by Hardison's text, signaling he was ready to start a super-genius four-way video-conference-briefing thingy. Eliot and Parker leaned in toward Eliot's laptop, and he flipped it open on the coffee table. His screen showed Sophie, Nate, and Hardison, each in their own little frame. Hardison began his presentation.

"Okay, Nate didn't give me time to gussy this up like usual, so here's the short version..."

"That'll be a first..." Eliot grumbled, his pent-up irritation beginning to seep out.

"'Scuse you? You don't want to start with me man, we still got some talking to do 'bout your assumptions..."

"Hardison..." They could see Nate onscreen, forehead in hand and elbow braced on the table, next to the ubiquitious bottle. Must have a hell of a hangover Eliot thought, with satisfaction.

"Okay, okay, hold on to your doilies...I found out our dear doctor "Frank," last name Williams, has only been in LA for the last eight years or so. Before that, he lived on the East Coast, where he was a research scientist working on the clinical trials of a new antidepressant that was supposed to have fewer side effects than what's currently on the market. Thing is, the drug never made it to the _human_ clinical trials, because the poor innocent research _animals_ were all dropping dead. Like, more than was deemed 'acceptable'.

Now that kinda thing, a drug failing the trials is not so unusual. The scientists usually just shrug it off, scrap it, move on with their lives, right? Not Frank Williams. See, he never did anything of note in his life. Average grades, barely scraped through medical school, never published any papers...He _was_ married with two kids. Now divorced, estranged from the kids.

This particular drug trial was his one and only project of note and, sad as it is, it looks like the guy threw his whole self into it. It was his _life_. And that's sad also, because even if the drug worked out, it wasn't like it was some miracle cure for cancer, just another antidepressant among many. But, it was _his_ project and when the trials on this drug were shut down, he went a little crazy, apparently couldn't handle losing the only thing that woulda given him a shot at some notoriety, got loud and vocal, and ended up disgraced in his field."

Sophie spoke up then. "Are you saying he somehow got hold of a batch of that failed drug and is now running his _own_ human clinical trial? Oh, that's...How does he think that's even going to work? There is no way that would ever be officially sanctioned. He can't ever come forward and share his results, he'd be arrested!"

"The bigger question here is how did a disgraced research scientist end up in charge of Second Act? Didn't they run background checks?" Onscreen, Nate poured himself a drink.

Hardison had opened his mouth to reply, but Sophie spoke first. "Nate, you should know. If you tell a person what they _want_ to hear, very often they'll just...overlook...the rest. They won't even bother to check."

Hardison continued. "Yeah, and it's not too difficult to fake the paperwork, make it _look_ good. Moving across-country didn't hurt either. Beyond that though, this guy didn't really try to hide his tracks, and his little clinical trial is all over the map. No rhyme or reason to the patients he picked...guy's a loon!"

"No, he feels secure...he has no reason to believe anyone will find out. If he was simply insane, he wouldn't bother to cover his tracks as much as he did. No, he's the kind of crazy who knows what he is doing is not socially acceptable, but he believes that when he finishes his project and reveals his results, he will be vindicated. Welcomed back into his field with open arms." Nate tipped back his glass.

"And he's also broke. So with no financial backing to his so-called research, this job won't have any payout." Hardison looked apologetic.

Only Parker seemed a bit bothered by this, but when everyone turned toward her, she just shrugged. "Money would have been nice, but I really just want revenge."

Sophie spoke up again. "How would he get hold of the drug if it failed and they cancelled the rest of the trials?"

Eliot spoke up for the first time since the briefing started. "It's not that hard to make things fall through the cracks. It wouldn't be any more difficult than "losing" all that uranium, or all those guns... _What? Everyone_ knows that!"

 _"Yeah, 'everyone' whose hobbies include lurkin' and hittin' people."_ Hardison's muttering and Eliot's subsequent growl were overrun by Nate's plea for silence.

"Okay, guys, what we...all we need is to get hold of the notes he might have on his little "experiment," as well as a sample of the drug to prove it's the same one from the failed study. Yeah...Hardison, you told me he didn't have anything incriminating on his computer..."

"He had a big shiny new Glenn-Reider safe in his office, behind his closet door. He probably keeps hard copies in there!" Parker was suddenly the center of attention. "What? I got bored, I had time to wander!"

"Okay, that's easy. We'll just need to get a look inside that safe..."

"And how will we do that without a thief?" Now Eliot was the center of attention. "Parker is _not_ in on this job."

"But it's a simple smash and grab! Well, I mean with more finesse of course...all we need are copies of his notes right? And samples of the pill? Eliot and I can just go over there tonight, get what we need, and give it to the authorities!"

"Parker, you don't _like_ the authorities..." Sophie began.

"Well, sometimes they're useful!"

Parker's reply was overrun by Eliot. "You're not going, Parker!"

She turned toward him with a glare. "So, what, are _you_ going to sneak in and do it?"

"I _am_ a retrieval specialist. I can be sneaky!"

"And what about when you get to the safe? Punching it isn't going to do any good!" Parker suddenly stopped, gulped, and reached for the trashcan by her feet, cradling it on her lap. Eliot sighed, and turned the computer's camera away from her to preserve her dignity in front of the others.

"That's why you're off this job." Eliot's words were for her alone, and he kept his tone neutral. It wouldn't do any good to yell at her further. Parker knew as well as he did that she'd never make it through even a simple job right now.

"Parker?" Nate spoke up when it appeared Parker wasn't going to immediately need the trash can. "How good a look did you get of the safe? Could you walk Eliot through opening it?"

"No. Not without seeing it up close. Probably not even then." Parker hung her head over the trashcan. They all knew this wasn't Parker being difficult. Safes were her specialty and if she said she needed to see it in person, then that was the truth.

"Okay, Sophie? You're going to have to get Dr. Frank to open it for us. Is 'Dr. Tanner' still on staff at Second Act?"

"Well, no, but she did resign graciously after picking up 'Rose' yesterday...What? My aliases almost never burn bridges! I rather like 'Dr. Tanner'. She could prove useful some time..." Sophie trailed off, lost in thought.

"Can she convince Dr. Frank that her resignation was premature?"

Sophie appeared affronted. "Oh Nate, she could convince him he's Hippocrates himself."

"Good, good. Play to his ego, get him to share his project with you. He wants validation. How long will it take you to get back here?" Nate refilled his tumbler.

"Well..." Sophie looked away as Eliot stared at the screen expectantly... "Oh, alright! I admit it, I'm in Paris. Happy?"

"So...if you left now, most of a day...okay, have 'Dr. Tanner' call Dr. Frank and arrange to get back on staff. We can work on the rest while you're airborne."

"No." All eyes turned to Eliot again. "I'm not comfortable with her goin' in alone. He'll be suspicious that she resigned and took a patient with her. A patient who happens to be part of his secret highly-illegal clinical trial!"

"No, no...we can play to that...'Dr. Tanner' expresses interest in 'Rose's' amazing, miracle improvement while at Second Act, so she desires to know what the secret wonder treatment was..." Nate tipped back the second drink, and reached for his bottle again.

"Ooh, a variant of the Emperor's Clothes con...very sophisticated..." Sophie voiced her approval at the same time Eliot objected again.

"Nate, she's not goin' in alone! If that's your only idea, we wait until Parker feels better and run her smash and grab instead!" Eliot was keeping one eye on Parker, still hugging her trashcan while trying to claim that she felt perfectly well enough to do so tonight.

"Then you go in with Sophie. You weren't there often, so a simple disguise should work fine. Janitor?" If he had been there more often to check up on the team, Eliot thought, they wouldn't be in this mess at all. But he grudgingly agreed. They could get this slimeball taken care of quickly, and he'd be in position to back up Sophie if needed.

Nate took that as his cue. "Okay, that's the plan. Hardison, get Sophie on a plane ASAP. Sophie, make your call. You should land by tomorrow afternoon. We can get our evidence before Second Act closes for the day. Goodnight, everyone." He abruptly signed off.

Parker looked at Eliot, crestfallen. "He didn't say it."

"Say _what,_ Parker?" Eliot felt the start of a tension headache trying to flare up.

Parker hugged her trashcan with one hand and gestured with the other, "'Let's go steal a'...killer drug, a mad scientist, a whatever. He didn't say it. He jinxed us." Eliot sighed again, reached over and shut his laptop.

* * *

_"I don't like him." Eliot, twenty-one now and home on leave, scowled at Lizzie as she got ready for her date that night. He and Dad still weren't talking, so Mr. Martin had offered Eliot the couch in their den while he was home, and Lizzie had met him there after school._

_"Oh El, you only just met Richie. He's nice."_

_"No, he's_ charming. _There's a big difference."_

"You're _charming."_

_"Exactly. So I recognize it when I see it." There had been something...distinctive...in the guy's eyes whenever he looked at Lizzie. "He's not a not a nice guy, Lizzie. And sixteen's too young to date."_

_"I could be thirty and you'd still say that. It's not a real date, anyway. We're going to meet Molly and some other kids and see a movie. That's all!"_

_"I don't like it. I'm gonna go have a talk with him. Alone." Eliot was already irritable. He had fought with Aimee, earlier. She wanted him to leave the Service, live up to the promise ring he had given her the night before he enlisted. How could he tell her the time just wasn't quite right? He still hadn't worked up the nerve to approach Dad, despite Lizzie's pleas. And it felt...good...to be out making a difference in the world. He felt...free._

_Lizzie smiled. "Just don't snarl at him, Eliot!"_

_"I don't 'snarl.'" Eliot turned for the door._

_"Well, don't growl then!" She called after him. "He'll never take you seriously!"_

_"I don't 'growl' either."_ But he damn well will take me seriously _Eliot thought as he stalked out to Richie's car._

* * *

Parker was still very ticked off at Eliot for keeping her out of this job and Eliot was becoming more than a little irritated with her continued sulking, and his building headache, so he had readily agreed when she insisted on sleeping on the couch in her own office tonight. _He_ insisted she keep the door partly open so he could hear if she needed anything, and she had stalked off muttering something about being treated as a child. Eliot avoided yelling a retort at her. At least she _was_ going to bed, her fever seemed to have dissipated, and she hadn't actually thrown up earlier during the briefing and had eaten some of the dinner he had made afterward; a fresh batch of soup, and slice of plain toast, even!

Eliot spent a couple of blessedly quiet hours reading before deciding to turn in himself. He made a last trip through their suite turning off lights, checking every window, peering out at the city here and there, and triple-checking that the main door to their offices was locked. He stepped soundlessly up to Parker's office door and peered in. She seemed sound asleep, stretched out on her couch under a light blanket and snoring softly. He went to his own office, turned out the lights, and stretched out on his own couch.

Eliot was woken a few short hours later by the ringing of his phone. He squinted at the caller ID, then flicked it open. "Parker, what the hell?"

"Come and get me, please?" Her whisper sounded timid, plaintive.

"Where the hell are you?!" Eliot was already off his couch and running down the hall only to find Parker's office empty. _Damnit!_

He slammed through the office doors, barely taking the time to lock them behind himself, and pounded down the hallway to the fire stairs. They would be quicker than the elevator.

He still held his phone pressed to his ear. "Second Act...I broke into Dr. Frank's office and scanned his notes, but then he showed up and I had to hide! He's destroying the originals and I didn't get a sample of the pills yet! And I don't feel really good..."

Eliot burst through the stairway door into the underground parking garage, and sprinted for his pickup.

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

_Eliot was woken from a fitful sleep by the ringing of the Martins' downstairs phone. He hadn't been sleeping terribly well lately. Something didn't sit right with him about that new general, Atherton, and some of the missions his team had been on. He had thought being home on leave would help him his gather his thoughts, put a new perspective on things, but all it did was remind him he still hadn't dealt with The Fight with Dad, and now he had Aimee pressuring him, too._

_The clock on the mantle showed it was almost eleven. Eliot levered himself off the couch and grabbed the phone before it could wake the Martins. "Hello?"_

_"Can you come get me, El?" Lizzie should have been home by now, and her voice sounded a little shaken._

_"Are you okay? Where are you? What did he do?" If the phone hadn't been attached to the wall, Eliot would have been out the door and in his truck already._

_"I'm at the ice cream parlor, but I'm okay. The cops are here."_

_"The...cops?"_

_"I might have hit Richie. A little. And I may have stabbed him with a spoon...just come get me."_

_The police officer on scene met Eliot when he pulled up. Lizzie was sitting at one of the outdoor tables and looked perfectly fine. Richie was seated on the curb, a makeshift ice pack pressed to his left eye, bloodied tissues stuffed up his nostrils, and a crude bandage around his forearm. A broken bloodied plastic spoon lay nearby._

_"You're Elizabeth Spencer's brother?"_

_"Eliot, yeah. What happened?"_

_"She told me Richie here was driving her home, they stopped for an ice cream and he got a little handsy with her. Said she defended herself just like you taught her." The officer's voice was laced with amusement._

_"Uh, yeah...there going to be a problem with him?" Eliot gestured at Richie, who was deliberately not looking at him._

_"I'm pretty sure he won't want to press charges. Richie has a bit of a record, and I don't think he'll want to admit he got beat up by a girl. Just take your sister home, we'll run him in and call it a night."_

_"Thank you, sir." As Eliot passed Richie on the way to gather Lizzie, he growled "I warned you about her." Richie definitely heard him, but wouldn't meet his eyes._

_When Eliot pulled up to the house, he saw Dad sitting in the rocker on the porch. He stood, but didn't make any move to meet the truck. Eliot stopped far enough down the drive he could pretend he didn't see Dad._

_"Just tell Dad the truth about tonight, I think everything will be fine."_

_"Come in and talk to him, please?" Eliot had always been wrapped around Lizzie's finger, but this time he stood firm against her pleas._

_"I can't do that right now, Sweetheart. Maybe next time." After he sorted out the problems with Aimee, and Atherton...next time, he would definitely talk to Dad._

_Lizzie sighed, leaned over and kissed his rough cheek. Then she hopped out of the truck and made her way up the drive._

* * *

Parker's announcement that she didn't feel well was followed by a gagging cough, hastily muffled. This came just as Eliot slammed his truck door closed and jammed his key in the ignition. By the time he tore out of the garage and hit the city street, Parker had also sneezed twice, and all that presented a new problem.

"I think he heard me!" He whisper was breathless, almost inaudible.

"Parker, can you get somewhere safe?"

"I'm in the vent in the inner office, I don't think anyone ever cleans, it's really dusty!" she sounded like she was trying not to cough, and he could hear the sound of her moving through the vent shaft. "He _was_ in the outer office shredding the notes..."

"Stay there and WAIT for me! I'm fifteen minutes out!" Less, if he ran every red light.

"No! He heard me, he knows someone's here...I have to get to the pills before he does! They must be in the dispensary..."

"Parker, _damnit!_ " This team, hell Parker _alone_ was going to be the death of him! He'd be all gray hair and hypertension within a year, or dead in a single-vehicle rollover considering how he was taking the turns in his truck right now. Why couldn't he have brought the Challenger into work this time?

Eliot silently thanked God that it was just after three in the morning, so the city streets were nearly empty...he ought to be fine so long as he didn't draw a cop's attention. Speeding, cell phone, random lane changes, no blinker...hell, he wasn't even wearing a seat belt!

And to add to his multi-tasking, he was also silently cursing Parker and Nate, both. Parker for making him a candidate for the state loony bin, and Nate for the idiotic idea to put Sophie back on staff. If it was only Parker's leaving the rehab that spooked Dr. Frank, he would have returned to destroy evidence last night, long before the team would ever find out his dirty little secret. No, it was Sophie's call this evening that precipitated this.

"Parker! If he heard you, he's going to alert the night staff and whatever security they have there to track you down!" Eliot took another corner fast, and found himself bearing down on a police cruiser. _Damnit!_ He braked hard, hoping the officer hadn't been looking in his rearview mirror. He turned again at the next intersection and floored the gas pedal. He kept glancing in his rearview mirror, but saw no flashing lights.

"I don't think the staff were in on it...He won't destroy those pills if there are other witnesses around."

"It doesn't matter, Parker! Whatever else he's doing, he has clearance to be there any time of the day, you don't! They'll catch you and turn you over to the police, and he'll just finish what he was doing. And he'll escape anyway while we're getting _you_ out of jail! Find somewhere to hide, and WAIT for me!"

"Can't. I just heard an announcement about a missing patient...It's me they're looking for, right?"

"That's what I was telling you! Stay PUT!" What part of that was so hard to understand? Eliot made the turn onto the last straightaway out of the congested part of the city headed toward Second Act. He saw no other traffic around, and asked that big Chevy engine for everything it had. Getting the truck into triple digits wasn't a problem, it had the power to do so, but the handling got a little...squirrelly...and he was putting a lot of stress on tires that weren't designed for high speed. He was also driving one-handed because there was no way he was going to break communication with Parker. Right now he wished that he had listened a little closer to Hardison when he blabbed on about installing hands-free cell phone devices in everyone's personal vehicle. If he survived this night, he might just be a little more inclined to listen to the kid. Maybe.

Second Act's building and grounds loomed into view over the next rise and Eliot slowed the truck and pulled to the side of the road about a block away. He made sure to park legally. It wouldn't do to rescue Parker only to find a traffic cop running his plate or booting a tire.

After the team dropped Hurley and Nate off at the rehab center, Eliot had run a preliminary security review of Second Act. Part of the grounds was walled off, but they relied on the visual barrier of the wall rather than any sort of perimeter alarm, weight or motion sensors, or security cameras to deter patient escapes. Or intrusions. They had also landscaped right up to and over the wall. Sloppy. That was an invitation rather than a deterrent.

"Stay on the line, Parker." Eliot dropped his open phone into a jacket pocket then scrambled up the wall using vines and tree branches. At the top, he paused to look and listen. This was not a high security facility, there were no outside guard patrols or dogs loose on the grounds. It was still dark but there was a half moon. It gave him enough light to see, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't _be_ seen from any of the windows if he used the landscape for cover.

Eliot dropped quietly down from the wall and pulled his phone out again. "I'll meet you at the dispensary, but stay in the vents! How did you get into the building without setting off an alarm?"

"They didn't fix the locks on Nate's window yet. There's no one else staying in the room so they just locked it from the hallway." Eliot darted as quickly as he dared from tree to tree and, finally, to the window he remembered opened on Nate's room.

Even with a missing patient alert, night staff was sparse and Eliot managed to make his way down several hallways without alerting anyone to his presence. Well, except the two night orderlies he had to knock out and stash in empty rooms. They would be out for the count, and as long as no one went looking for them, no one would raise an alarm. During the security review, Eliot had studied the blueprints for this building, so he knew where he was going, but he had to balance speed with stealth. The fewer orderlies he had to waste time knocking out, the better.

Over the line, Eliot could hear a gentle scrape and rattle sound as if someone had opened a vent hatch. "Parker, tell me you're not going into the dispensary!"

"Sorry, can't tell you that, it would be a lie. My phone's going in my pocket now." He didn't expect to hear Parker slide out of the vent, she was usually quieter than a damned ninja. This time though, he heard her land with a _thunk_ , then a rattle and crash and muffled curse and groan. After a moment, Eliot heard her whisper over the phone again. "This might have been a bad idea, Eliot. I didn't exactly nail the landing...Nothing broken, before you ask. Just bruised...crap, he's here!"

Eliot picked up his pace, stealth be damned. "Block the door and find a weapon!"

"There's nothing to block it with!"

Eliot had reached the corner to the hallway that ran past the dispensary. He peeked around the edge, just in time to see Dr. Frank swipe his key card and let himself in. Eliot stepped silently down the hall to the doorway, and could hear Frank through the open door.

"Rose? Well, now, isn't this a surprise? I suppose you're in on this with Dr. Tanner, hm? Want to steal my research for yourselves? Or are you just two more short-sighted people who can't see the bigger picture?" Eliot slipped quietly through the doorway behind Frank. He could see Parker now, pale and shaky but otherwise unscathed. He thought she hadn't spotted him yet, but then she waved her hand, held down by her side, just a tiny bit. Not enough for Frank to notice, but Eliot read it for what it was. _Wait._

"There was nothing wrong with the drug! Someone must have sabotaged those trials! People have always sabotaged my work!" Frank advanced a step toward Parker, then stopped. "No more. I won't let you ruin it when I'm so close." _What the hell was Parker doing?!_

The doctor raised a walkie talkie to his mouth. "False alarm, no missing patient. Call off the search."

He addressed Parker again. "You know, Rose, it's amazing what addiction will drive a person to do. It impedes judgment. Crawling through dirty old air vents to break into a dispensary and steal drugs...It's a long way from that vent to the floor...very easy to misjudge the landing...you fall, your head hits the table...Such a shame. Another young life cut tragically short by drug addiction."

Eliot was standing directly behind Frank now, and the the doctor noticed when Parker broke eye contact with him, glancing over his shoulder and smiling. He turned just in time to meet Eliot's fist, and dropped like a sack of bricks.

Parker wiggled her phone at Eliot, and her feral smile was truly frightening when combined with her pale, gaunt face, and shadowed eyes. "I recorded him. Come on, let's finish this!"

Eliot took in her posture, slightly hunched, leaning hard on the wall for support, and shook his head. Parker looked like death warmed over again, but if she wanted to finish this, they may as well just finish it. It would be easier than arguing with her again. "Alright. What d'ya want to do?"

* * *

_"Eliot, I can't find your sister!" Eliot, dressed in his Sunday finest, stepped out on the porch to see Daddy frantically circling the house and calling for Lizzie. There was no sign of her. She had been silent and withdrawn all morning, and who could blame her? They were burying Mama today._

_Lizzie had disappeared before, in the days since Mama got sick, but never farther than the garden, where she found solace. On this beautiful spring morning however, the young plants were not tall enough to hide a seven-year-old. Lizzie truly was missing. As Eliot's gaze swept the flowerbeds, however, it fell upon the tender young Indian Blanket flowers, just coming into bud. They were Mama's favorites and suddenly, Eliot knew where Lizzie must have gone._

_"The creek, Daddy!" Eliot tore across the yard to the dim track through the woods behind their house that led to the little creek. The Indian Blankets in their yard weren't in bloom yet, but those that grew wild in the meadow on the other side of the creek always bloomed earlier._

_Eliot was out of breath by the time he reached the creek and saw_ thank God! _Lizzie kneeling in the meadow in a swath of brilliant red and yellow. He slowed, taking the time to catch his breath as he crossed the shallow, rocky creek. Eliot was as mad as he had ever been with Lizzie, truly angry. "You scared the hell out of us, Lizzie! What were ya thinkin'? We'll be late for Mama's funeral!"_

_That last was said as Eliot reached Lizzie and finally got a good look at her. Her face was red and tear-streaked, her knees and palms scraped and the hem of her beautiful dress was soaked and muddy. She had a tiny bouquet of the Indian Blankets clutched to her chest and suddenly, Eliot wasn't angry any more. He knelt on the ground next to her, heedless of the Mama-voice in his head scolding him about getting his Sunday clothes dirty._

_"Hey, we gotta get going, Daddy's really worried about you. Wanna take those back for Mama?" She nodded, and Eliot helped Lizzie to her feet, brushed off her knees and dress as much as possible, and they started across the meadow following the dim track to where it met the road. By the time they reached Daddy, who had brought the pickup along the road as soon as he realized where Eliot was going, both Eliot and Lizzie held big bouquets of Indian Blankets tied with the ribbons that had held Lizzie's braids. She never did like having her hair done up, anyway._

* * *

Parker easily located and secured Dr. Frank's special pills, and they straightened up the shelves she had knocked awry when she dropped out of the air vent. Then, she took point as Eliot none-too-gently hoisted the doctor over his shoulder and they made their way back through the hallways to Frank's office. It was easy enough to avoid the remaining night staff on duty, since Frank had called off the search for Parker, but Eliot was conscious of time running short. The two orderlies he had knocked out would eventually be missed.

Eliot tied up and gagged Dr. Frank with Parker's rope because, of course, Parker almost never went anywhere without rope. Parker brought out the remainder of the notes that he hadn't finished shredding and laid them, the pills, and the basket from his shredder in a semi-circle around Dr. Frank, on the floor of his office. Lastly, Parker stapled a note she had typed and printed from his computer to the sleeve of his suit.

MY NAME IS FRANK WILLIAMS AND I HAVE DONE A VERY BAD THING. I STOLE THESE DEADLY PILLS FROM A RESEARCH LAB AND HAVE BEEN GIVING THEM TO PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE! PLEASE ARREST ME AND INVESTIGATE. THANK YOU.

"Really, Parker?" Eliot pulled the knots tighter, for good measure.

Parker shrugged. "Sophie said I should practice being polite."

Eliot shook his head. "Ready to go?" At Parker's nod, he picked up Dr. Frank's phone and dialed 911. "Help! There's a break in at Second Act Rehabilitation Center...yeah, armed robbers are holding the staff hostage! Send the S.W.A.T. team...and the bomb squad! Hell, send everyone! Hurry!"

"Really, Eliot? You always complain Hardison overdoes it!"

"Just get goin', Parker!" It wouldn't be their cleanest or most...artistic...work, but it would do. They had Parker's recording, the copies of Frank's notes she had scanned with her phone, and a small sample of the pills to hand over to Hardison, so he could add his special touch to the inevitable police investigation.

Eliot and Parker went out Dr. Frank's office window, deliberately setting off the alarm as it would only help add to the confusion when the police arrived. The office was on the side of the facility that wasn't walled, and the two of them took off across the open grounds and to a side street that would lead them out of sight. After taking a moment for Parker to catch her breath and decide if she needed to throw up in the bushes, they circled around to the main road where Eliot had left his truck, and pulled away just in time to dart around a corner before the police began to arrive from the opposite direction.

Now that the immediate danger had passed and Parker was safe, Eliot could take his time returning to the offices, by a more roundabout route than he had taken to get here...just in case his reckless driving had been spotted and reported. As he wound back toward the city, Eliot had time to process all that happened, and remember just how _pissed off_ he was that Parker had acted so rashly, putting herself in such danger. But before he could begin to form his roiling thoughts into words, Eliot's phone buzzed with a text from Hardison. Thankfully, the kid typed in mostly complete sentences.

_"Need to brief again ASAP. Frank implicated not arrested 2 suspicious deaths." ___

____

____

_Thank you, Hardison, for waiting to tell us that, on top of everything else, Frank Williams is a homicidal maniac!_ Eliot glanced over at Parker, looking even worse now than she had when he first sequestered her at the offices. She was staring straight ahead, looking as though she knew a tirade was coming, and wasn't welcoming it. Any remaining sympathy Eliot might have had for Parker flew out the window when she pointed ahead of them at a battered old Volkswagen Rabbit parked perfectly legally on the side of the road. "You can just drop me off at my car. It's right there."

And not only was Eliot's sympathy gone, his anger threatened not just to flare up, but explode in what Hardison might call a nuclear apocalypse. Hands clamped so tightly around his steering wheel that they were nearly shaking, Eliot managed to force out through gritted teeth, _"Don't. Speak. Parker."_

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

Parker remained silent for the moment and Eliot pried his right hand off the steering wheel long enough to text Hardison a curt reply with the suggestion to check the current Los Angeles police chatter. Then he dropped the phone into his jacket pocket. It buzzed again almost immediately, but he didn't care to answer. The kid's curiosity would have to wait.

Eliot had just enough control left to know he needed to rein his temper in before trying to speak to Parker. He began silently counting backward from ten, but Parker chose that moment to start digging her own grave. "Really. Just drop me off, I'll drive myself home."

Enough with the damn counting. "You're in no condition to drive, Parker! Now shut up and _listen_ for once! Dr. Frank was ready to _kill_ you back there, and..."

"I can take care of myself...and I drove _here_ just fine..." That damned stubbornness was only deepening the hole she was digging.

Eliot overran her mumbling. _"And_ I just got a text from Hardison that he was previously implicated in two suspicious deaths! Do you realize how _stupid_ it was for you to go in there without all the information?"

"Well, _no one_ knew that when we were briefing earlier! If not me, then it would have been Sophie he tried to kill!"

"I would have been there _with_ Sophie, AND we _would_ have known, because Hardison found it out tonight!" And he was going to have to talk to the kid about how he managed to miss that in his earlier research! "Just what the hell were ya _thinkin'?!"_

"I was _thinking_ you had said Dr. Frank would be suspicious of Sophie! And he was, or else why would he have showed up tonight and not last night to destroy the evidence?!" Eliot had to grudgingly admire her tenacity despite her ghastly appearance, and her reasoning as she had drawn the same conclusion he did regarding Dr. Frank's timing. But then, she had to go and ruin the moment.

"I was _thinking_ she wouldn't have to go in at all if I got the evidence tonight! I was _thinking_ that if we could stop him from poisoning innocent people even a day earlier, it would be worth it! If I hadn't gone in tonight, he would have destroyed all the evidence and escaped! And maybe done the same thing somewhere else!"

"But you didn't know that at the time! And that doesn't change the fact _YOU_..."

"What? Made a _sacrifice?_ Or are you the only one who gets to _do_ that?" The venom in her words now was unmistakable, and it stopped Eliot's diatribe in its tracks. Okay, backward from ten. Not English though, maybe Farsi...or Hebrew. Maybe both.

Parker took Eliot's silence as permission to continue. "That's what I thought. Hypocrite."

That last was muttered under her breath, but Eliot caught it. He slalomed his pickup onto the shoulder and stomped the brakes so hard the truck shrieked and skittered to a stop. He slammed it into _park_ and turned toward Parker. _"Want to try that again?!"_ His growl was deep, truly dangerous now. He saw the briefest flash of real fear in Parker's eyes and a tiny voice in the back of his head frantically tried to warn him he was dangerously close to doing or saying something unforgivable.

But then that fear was gone, and Parker _didn't_ shy away. She leaned forward, right into his face, and met him glare for glare. "I _said_ you're a _hypocrite_ Eliot! If _you_ knew someone was hurting innocent people and _you_ could do something about it right away, _you'd_ go in even if you were sick, or bruised, or bleeding out! You would have done _something!_ " Her tears flowed freely now and she was almost at the point of hyperventilating. She had gone pale again, and Eliot tried to find something to say to calm her down, but she abruptly opened the passenger door, dropped out of the truck, and staggered away.

They were pulled over on the rise of a gently-sloping grassy hillside, and for the briefest moment, Eliot thought Parker was trying to run off back to her car, and he debated if he should just let her. If he went after her now it would only upset her more, and she had always returned on her own the other times she had run off.

Parker stopped a few feet from the truck though, hunched over and...heaving. Eliot sighed, and reached behind his seat for one of the water bottles he kept stored there. He got out of the truck and walked toward Parker, angling his trajectory to approach her from the front so as not to startle her, but she straightened up and shoved at him anyway. "Leave me alone! Just back _off!"_ The shove staggered her backward more than it did him.

"Parker damnit, sit down before you fall down!" To prove his point, Eliot reached out and shoved her shoulder just hard enough to off balance her. She landed on her butt, and made no move to get back up. Instead she folded into herself, knees pulled up to her chest, forehead resting on them and arms wrapped around her calves. The shaking of her shoulders was the only sign she was crying, and Eliot decided he _never_ wanted to know how she had learned to cry so silently.

Suddenly exhausted beyond belief with the events of the last few days, Eliot lowered himself to the ground next to Parker. He ran a hand through his hair, then rested his forehead on his palm, elbow braced on his knee. For the first time in a long while, Eliot found himself at a complete loss. Parker was difficult enough to figure out on the best of days, but in the last forty-eight hours he had seen her swing unpredictably between craziness, insecurity, anger, even clinginess. He could usually figure out the root cause of any of Parker's moods if he cared to take the time, but this breakdown now truly baffled him.

Even if they made sense only to her, Parker's actions always had a purpose, and what she had done tonight made _more_ sense than usual, even if it had been completely and utterly stupid. Parker had been scolded for acting rashly before, by various members of the team, so what was different about now? Eliot supposed he could attribute her breakdown to a combination of illness, exhaustion, confinement, and even boredom. But then, he thought back to what she had said to him. At the briefing she had expressed a desire for revenge, but just now in the truck...she had spoken only of innocent people being hurt.

And then Eliot realized what was truly behind this. Parker had been trying so hard lately to help people. When called for jury duty, she had insisted the team look deeper into the trial. She had gone after those orphans in Serbia, despite Nate's assurance that the team would come back for them. She had picked up on Eliot's concern today for Sophie's safety. More than the monetary income, she _liked_ what the team was doing. It was affecting her in a positive way. And more than that, she liked the team, cared about _them,_ maybe even trusted them. And if even half of what Eliot suspected about her childhood was true, those were major steps forward for Parker. So now, with Eliot insisting she sit out a job, she was afraid she wasn't useful to them any more. Damnit, he had screwed up, again! And he had a sudden profound urge to go out and hunt down anyone who had ever made Parker feel unwanted.

"Hell, Parker, I'm sorry. I never meant to imply we didn't _need_ you." Parker jerked sideways, startled, like she hadn't expected him to be sitting there beside her. And, he realized, she hadn't been. She had expected him to just drive off and leave her behind. Now, still curled into herself, she was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Finding himself unsure what to say, Eliot pressed the water bottle into her hand instead. After a moment, she opened it with trembling fingers.

She took a few slow sips, then spoke in an unsteady voice. "If you thought I was stupid, why did you come and get me?"

"I said what you _did_ was stupid..." Eliot pushed his hair back, then crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on them, looking her in the eye. "If you thought I wouldn't come and get you, why'd you call?"

"I just...hoped you would." She sounded so young and scared and Eliot wondered how many times in her past Parker had needed a knight in shining armor. Too bad she still didn't have one, Eliot thought bitterly, but maybe battered and bloodstained armor would do for now.

He cast about for the right words to fix this. "You an' I...we're used to workin' alone, taking care of ourselves...but I wasn't always alone. Sometimes, I forget that it was different for you." Parker rested her head on her knees again, but her face was turned toward him now. She was listening. "I only wanted you to sit this job out so you could rest. You can't push yourself like this if you're not well, you'll only make yourself worse. You're always part of this team, Parker. This...'more than a team.'" Parker's eyebrows rose in question. "Yeah, I heard what Hardison said, and...he's right. We aren't _just_ a team any more, and none of us would reject you just 'cause you need to sit out one job. You're worth more than that, Parker."

She didn't speak for a while after that, and Eliot found himself gazing down at the part of the city their hill overlooked. Turned out they had a decent view of the goings on at Second Act a few hundred feet below. The lights of the emergency vehicles flashed brilliantly in the darkness, and Eliot mused on the mess they had left behind. A few well-placed anonymous tips from Hardison would help clear everything up eventually, but he still had to call the kid.

After a while, as if testing what Eliot had told her about her worth, Parker shifted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. She sat stiffly at first, but when he didn't shrug her off, she relaxed against him. "You said you should have checked up on me during the job, but if I hadn't taken the pills, we never would have found out he was doing this. He would have kept hurting people."

Eliot had nothing to say to that, so he addressed another issue instead. "Parker...you called me a hypocrite...and you're mostly right. _I_ take the hits so none of you have to, so the rest of you can get the job done. But I don't seek out the pain, I'm not _tryin'_ to be a martyr or anythin', I'm just tryin' to...help people...in the only way I know how."

"Like when I told Nate I only knew how to do one thing? That's why _I_ went back to him in the park. Why did you? Why do you stay now?"

Eliot didn't know how to answer that. At first, he had gone back because he had no other jobs waiting in the wings. Getting revenge on Dubenich had paid out royally but what was more...it had been _fun._ And working with Nate Ford again after so many years had been...interesting. It was a shock though, seeing the changes in the man now that his son was gone...not that Nate Ford had _ever_ been easy to work with.

But maybe he had stayed for a while longer than strictly necessary, had turned down a few other job offers here and there, because he naively thought Leverage Consulting and Associates would help "fix" Nate. But Nate didn't want fixing, that much was obvious now, and by the time Eliot admitted that to himself, he had three other very good reasons to stick around.

Eliot hadn't yet answered but, as if reading his mind, Parker spoke again. "Nate's a danger to you, Eliot. You're going to get hurt more and more because Nate keeps taking on dangerous jobs. So why do you stay?"

"I...care...too much about the rest of you to let him drag you down with him." And there, Eliot finally admitted out loud what he had been silently fighting against all this last year. He did still have it in him to care about something.

"So all that cooking and bandaging and fighting instruction isn't _just_ part of your job, then?" And damnit if Parker didn't sound amused! She was entirely too perceptive for her own good sometimes. "You're worth letting _us_ care about _you,_ Eliot. And we have to do something about Nate before he drags you down, too."

Eliot found himself completely unable to speak, but Parker didn't seem to be waiting for a reply. The pre-dawn Southern California morning was a bit chilly, but neither made a move to return to the truck just yet. They watched as the activity below became less frantic, and excess personnel left the crime scene. They were too far away to see details, but Eliot guessed Dr. Frank must be in custody at the local precinct by now. Hardison would be paying attention and making sure he didn't get released for the time being.

As the sky barely began to lighten in the east, Parker asked in a small and tired voice, "Can we go back to the offices now?"

_The offices,_ not _my car._ Eliot smiled. "Promise not to puke in my truck? I just got Hardison to clean it."

To Eliot's surprise, Parker laughed. "He said you couldn't make him do it! We made a bet, he owes me a hundred bucks!"

Eliot shook his head. "There is something wrong with _both_ of you!" But he rose, hoisted Parker to her feet, and they walked uphill together to the truck.

* * *

_Mama had talked to Eliot alone one night just after they all finally accepted she wouldn't be getting any better. She had asked Eliot to look after Daddy and Lizzie, because she knew Daddy couldn't do it alone. And it was almost like Mama had been prescient, because she had looked Eliot in the eyes and warned him not to lose himself in caring for his family. Eliot hadn't understood what she meant then, but it had always stuck with him. He had dreamed of it some nights: Mama, stoic, unshed tears standing in her dark eyes, reminding him he had a life of his own to lead._

_And so, Eliot considered his responsibility fulfilled once he had made it through school, with better-than-average grades, even. By now, Lizzie was strong, responsible, and self-assured, and Dad didn't need to worry about anything but the store. It wasn't that Eliot had minded doing all that he did for his family. Someone had to do it. He had never resented it._

_Until, he did. Until that night when he told Dad he was enlisting in the Army the next morning._

_"What about your responsibilities here?"_

_"What responsibilities? Lizzie can take care of herself now, you don't have to do anythin' different than you've been doing all our lives! Just keep runnin' that store, it's what you're good at!" And maybe that wasn't entirely fair, Dad had done what he was able while they were growing up. But on this night, the years-old resentments that Eliot hadn't acknowledged were bubbling under the surface had finally erupted._

_"If you don't want the hardware store, there's plenty of other places to work around here! Why run off and try to get yourself killed?" Dad didn't come from a military background. But that didn't mean he took issue with the Service. On the contrary, he was always respectful of active-duty soldiers and veterans alike. But it wasn't in his blood, and he simply didn't understand Eliot's desire to enlist. To run away, as he saw it. But Eliot saw it as doing as his Mama had told him: living his own life._

_"Mama told me not to lose myself takin' care of this family. I finally understand what she meant." And Eliot forced himself to ignore the sudden anguished look on his Dad's face as he turned his back on him and left the house._

_But Dad called after him, an attempt to bring Eliot back. "You never once complained it was too much for you! How could I have known?!" When that didn't work, he tried one last volley. "What about Aimee? She ain't gonna wait for you forever!" But Eliot was already getting in his truck. He'd find somewhere to park it for the night, and sleep in the bed._

* * *

The sun had not quite topped the hillsides around LA when Eliot finally pulled back into the underground garage. He glanced over at Parker, who had remained silent through the rest of Eliot's winding trip back to the offices. Call it paranoia, but he didn't want to pass the same traffic cameras he had passed earlier on his frantic run to rescue Parker. He'd get Hardison to erase the evidence of that, later.

Parker, to his surprise, was sound asleep, slumped against the passenger door. Like Eliot, Parker never fell asleep around the team. When Sophie or Hardison insisted on team movie nights, they or Nate more often than not would end up dead to the world, stretched out on the couch or an armchair. Eliot and Parker only ever allowed themselves to doze, if even that. If real shut-eye at the office was needed, Parker and Eliot would retreat to their respective personal offices, and lock the door. It was simply habit.

That first night, when Parker had been ill and completely out of sorts, falling asleep on the couch, _on Eliot himself,_ had been an anomaly. This...this was a friggin' alignment of planets. Eliot was half-inclined to simply wake Parker, out of consideration for his own safety, though he really didn't want to. She was finally getting some real rest. He walked around the truck to the passenger side and carefully opened the door, still surprised that Parker was completely dead to the world. Gently, he lifted her out of the truck, shoving the door shut with his elbow.

Parker stirred a little as the elevator doors opened on their floor, and Eliot set her on her feet as he unlocked the office doors. She wasn't completely awake, and he kept an arm around her shoulders as she stumbled to the couch and collapsed across it, barely taking the time to kick her shoes off. She was sound asleep again by the time he managed to shove a pillow under her head and pull a blanket over her.

_Yeah, planetary alignment, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to follow,_ Eliot mused as he pulled out his phone to make some calls.

TBC...


	7. Chapter 7

_Eliot decided to park in the open field behind the Martins' barn. There was no one around at this late hour, and in the morning he'd be gone before anyone woke. It was a mild night, and Eliot stretched out in the bed of his truck, looking up at the stars. A small voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Mama was urging him to go back and make things right with Dad before he left. But the admittedly-stubborn streak in him wouldn't let him even consider it. Not right now, anyway. He just needed to give it time, Eliot decided. Let both their hot heads cool a bit, then he'd sit down with Dad once he got back from basic training. That should be enough time._

_Eliot's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps over the dry grass, someone approaching from the barn. Eliot had a suspicion who it was, so he didn't sit up when the truck shifted as Lizzie used the tire to boost herself up to hang over the side of the bed, looking down at him._

_"You fought with Daddy, didn't you? You're leaving?"_

_Eliot frowned up at her. "What are you doing here so late? You should be in bed."_

_"It's not a school night, and I wanted to check on Moose. He's been sick." When Lizzie had started taking riding lessons three years ago, she had demanded Moose as her first mount, to the surprise of Mr. Martin, who had believed she might be a little leery of the horse who had thrown her. Lizzie had insisted it hadn't been Moose's fault, and she had since spoiled him rotten, despite moving on to faster and more alert mounts. "You didn't answer my question. Are you leaving? Were you even going to say goodbye to me first?"_

_"'Course I was." Though honestly, Eliot hadn't thought about that when he had stormed out of the house._

_"I know why you want to leave, Eliot. But you can't blame Daddy for not understanding." Lizzie hoisted herself the rest of the way into the truck bed and sat crosslegged against the tailgate as Eliot pulled himself up to lean against the back of the cab._

_"What do you know about it?" He glared at her, not wanting to admit this might be partly his fault, though Mama's voice told him he should listen up._

_"I know that Daddy has been wanting you to take on the store for a long time now, and you don't want to. I know that you took on pretty much everything Mama used to do, and Daddy let you, and you never complained! And..." Lizzie emphasized the last word when Eliot tried to interject._ "And _that doesn't excuse him. But you should have discussed things with him more. You never brought it up with him because you didn't want to fight in front of me, El. You wanted things to stay normal for me. But I wasn't stupid, I knew it was hard on you. And so did Daddy, but how could he do more than he was doing when you wouldn't let him? You never really gave him the chance to."_

_Lizzie finally stopped for a breath and just looked at him, smugly. Eliot wanted to snap at her, but he was too damned tired to bother and maybe, she might have been just a little bit right._

_"You're so damn stubborn El, just like Mama was." Before he could admonish her for swearing, Lizzie continued, "I was so young when she died, but you and Daddy never let me forget her. Thank you for that." Lizzie had somehow worked her way around the truck bed so she was seated next to Eliot now, leaning against him. "I don't mind you're leaving, El. Just don't forget to come back."_

* * *

Parker slept the sleep of the innocent, and Eliot made a quick, habitual security sweep of the offices. Nothing had been disturbed since he left in a rush earlier. No assassins or even run-of-the-mill goons waited in hiding to attack them.

When Eliot finished his sweep, he dialed Hardison's number and returned to the kitchen to pull out ingredients for one of his deluxe omelettes. He was dead dog tired after chasing down Parker, but also very hungry, and food prep would hopefully help him keep his temper in check while speaking with Hardison.

Hardison answered halfway through the first ring. "Why didn't ya wait? I thought you wanted Parker to sit this out, why'd you go in by yourselves?"

"Parker went in by _her_ self, I just had to go get her. What's this about Dr. Frank and suspicious deaths? Why didn't we know this yesterday?" Eliot had found a lovely spiral ham at the store the previous day, and was now carefully dicing several large pieces.

"I told you all at the briefing that Nate pushed me to get the research done ASAP, as if that's not how I _usually_ do things! I told him I wasn't sure we were ready to brief, but he didn't listen." Hardison stifled a yawn.

"So I kept digging afterward, stayed up all night, because you were so concerned about Sophie, you know?" Hardison paused again to yawn, and Eliot moved on to chopping some green onions.

"...then, I discovered two of the other research scientists who had worked with Dr. Frank, the one who first reported the unusually high number of research animal deaths, and another who Williams _claimed_ sabotaged his research, had died in separate car 'accidents' within six months after the clinical trial was shut down...Hey, are you chopping food-things?"

Disconcerted at the sudden change in topic, Eliot paused long enough to growl out, _"Why?"_

"Well, it's just...I kinda worked through breakfast...an' Nana's gone off to play bingo..." Another yawn.

"So, what, you want me to stuff some food through the phone for ya? Or maybe ship it overnight? Go cook somethin' for yourself, man!" Eliot started cracking eggs into a bowl.

A grumble that sounded suspiciously like _Nana doesn't approve of Hot Pockets_ preceded the remainder of Hardison's explanation. "Anyway, 'FBI Special Agent Thomas' made a few phone calls and got hold of the original detective from the first accident. Apparently, he's never completely believed it _was_ an accident, and thought Frank Williams mighta cut the brake lines or something. Problem was, the car went off a cliff, exploded in a fireball, you get the idea. Not enough left of it to find any conclusive evidence that it wasn't _just_ bad weather."

Hardison went quiet again, and Eliot could hear a refrigerator door open, some thumping around, and then he continued. "The detective only got to talk to Williams once. He had never made any direct threats against his coworkers and he didn't say anything incriminating at the time, but get this: The detective had taken an FBI profiler course for law enforcement not long before that, said it was like talking to a case study right there in front of him. His captain didn't believe in that profiling stuff, ordered him to lay off. Since there was never any arrest or official interrogation, there were no official records."

Eliot stirred a bit of cream into his eggs. "What about the other accident?"

"Jus' a minute...can never reach the bottom of these 'value size' peanut butter containers...where's the value in that?" A curse, a thump, then the distinctive clink of a knife against a glass preserves jar.

"Okay, second accident...occurred about three months later, but it was a different jurisdiction, and slightly different circumstances, so they were never tied together. Official ruling was _this_ guy had been driving drunk, but his widow claimed he _never_ drove even after just one drink. Always gave up his keys." This last was muffled by a mouthful of sandwich, and Eliot grimaced as he folded his toppings into his gourmet omelette.

"Is there anything you can do to get the cases looked at again?" Eliot slid the finished omelette onto a plate, and took a seat. Over the phone, he could hear Hardison yawn again.

"Is there...Didja forget who you're talking to?!" Hardison's voice reached an impressive pitch. Nothin' like a little insult to the ego to wake Hardison up! Eliot took a bite of omelette and chewed in bliss for a moment.

"Right now, he's bein' held on terrorism charges for makin' bomb threats. By the time that gets sorted out, I'll have planted some...bits and pieces...here and there...that will point the way like a big ol' flashin' arrow to the patient experiments and deaths associated with Second Act." More muffled chewing. "Even if the authorities can't tie him to the car accidents, and I don't see why they wouldn't be able to by the time _I'm_ done with everything...He will be in prison for a very, very long time. AND as soon as you send me those scans Parker took, I'm gonna track down the families of every patient in that bastard's notes, and get 'em some closure!"

"Good work, Hardison."

Hardison's words skidded to a halt. "Uh...what?"

"Did you get hold of Sophie? She' probably still in the air, but just let know she won't have to hit the ground running..." Eliot took another bite of omelette.

"You...feelin' okay, man? You never say things like 'good...'" He must have realized Eliot had gone deathly silent. "Right, never happened. I did leave Sophie a message, she'll get it when she lands. Called Nate, too..."

This time, Hardison took a moment to chew and swallow before continuing. "He asked if Parker was okay, but didn't seem interested in any kinda cleanup, said to handle it ourselves. He sounded hungover, El. I mean, really _really_ bad...and considering we were _supposed_ to do the job today...that ain't good. We gotta do something about him."

"Got any ideas?" Suddenly irritated, Eliot downed the rest of his omelette, and set to work cleaning up. Hardison remained silent. "Hey man, Parker really is okay. She'd probably like to hear from you later."

"Yeah, I'll call her. Send me those files and I'll get back to work."

* * *

When Parker finally woke in the early afternoon, she woke _hungry._ As in, she sought Eliot out for food, rather than just eating because he put something in front of her. Eliot had spent the morning in the kitchen, working some irritation out. He prepared a lasagna to cook later that evening, and a split pea soup with that lovely ham. He wanted to stay near Parker, just in case, but when it became obvious she wasn't going to be bothered by nightmares, he went to the gym. A little while into his workout, Eliot turned to see Parker watching him from the doorway. She looked...very nearly healthy. A bit tired, maybe, but definitely on the mend.

"Will you make waffles?"

"Tell ya what..." Eliot reached for a towel to dry the sweat on his face and neck. "You keep down some solid food today, and I'll _think_ about waffles in the mornin'." Parker beamed and nearly bounced into the room toward him. For a moment, Eliot thought she might be just crazy enough to want to spar right this minute, but instead she grabbed his arm and pulled him from the room.

"Well, make me _some_ kind of Eliot-food!"

Eliot, as gently as possible, wrenched his arm out of Parker's grasp and glared at her. It seemed to have no effect. "Go watch TV or somethin' while I shower, _then_ I'll make you food!"

Parker _was_ watching television when Eliot returned to the kitchen, though she was seated at the breakfast bar, utensils and a plate already arranged before her. She looked at Eliot expectantly, and Eliot rolled his eyes at her. He whipped up a smaller version of his earlier omelette, and Parker attacked it almost before he had fully slid it onto her plate. Eliot grimaced, thinking her stomach might rebel at the sudden onslaught, but she finished the omelette, slid off the stool, and went to sit in the lounge, throwing a quick "thanks!" back over her shoulder. Leave it to Parker to benefit from that midnight insanity. Or maybe it was having the fear of rejection lifted off her shoulders, Eliot thought grimly. At least her manners were improving. Somewhat.

Eliot had just settled into an armchair with a book when Parker's phone buzzed. She answered it, and Eliot watched as her smile slowly turned to a grimace. He could hear the unmistakable tones and cadences of a very angry Sophie coming through her phone. Something about "bone-headed" and "irresponsible" and "I've been on a _plane_ nearly twenty-four hours _straight!"_ and _"spending too much time with self-sacrificing imbeciles!"_

Eliot couldn't help but grin at Parker's discomfort. Then Sophie's voice softened so that Eliot couldn't pick up the individual words any more, but Parker's grimace faded as well, and she answered an apparent query, "Yeah, I'm feeling better. I...I miss you, too." Parker hung up, and glanced at Eliot with a confused half-smile.

"Told ya you matter," Eliot said before returning to his book.

Parker flicked through the television stations for a while, but nothing seemed to hold her interest. Eventually, she got up from the couch and disappeared from the lounge. Eliot tried to keep his curiosity in check. The offices were her home, too, and she had every right to wander around. But visions of a bored and _destructive_ Parker finally drove him to search her out. He found her in Hardison's personal office, very carefully and deliberately rearranging his things. It wasn't anything obvious, mostly switching a book or two on the shelves, sliding a pen cub three inches to the left, tilting a computer monitor half an inch downward...just enough to disorient someone like him.

Parker sensed his presence in the doorway, and glanced at him, but continued her work.

Eliot grinned. "How long have you been doin' that to Hardison?"

"Off and on for the last five months or so. Nate and Sophie figured it out too quickly, so I don't do it to them any more. But Hardison gets this funny, confused look when he reaches for something and it's in the wrong spot!" Parker smiled at the fond memories.

"You ever do it to _my_ office?" Eliot let a little warning growl into his voice.

"Of course not. You lock your office for a reason. I'd never mess with your secret weapons stash...oops." Her eyes widened like a deer in the headlights as Eliot glowered.

"You're obviously feelin' a lot better, an' you need somethin' constructive to do. Wanna spar?" At that, Parker smiled, and pushed past him, back down the hallway.

Eliot had wanted to start easy, but Parker soon showed she was, indeed, feeling much better. Her balance was mostly back, and she was in no immediate danger of losing her lunch. When Eliot was satisfied that enough of Parker's boundless energy had been worn off that _he_ could enjoy a quiet evening, he called a halt and went to prepare dinner.

Dinner went well, and when Parker wanted seconds, of _both_ the salad and lasagna, Eliot was more than happy to feed her up. He took the opportunity to fill Parker in on Hardison's research and where the case against Frank Williams currently stood.

"So, even though Nate cared enough about the victims to do this job in the first place, he just treated it like an obligation...like he didn't actually enjoy it...He hasn't been himself, he needs an intervention." This was stated with such certainty that Eliot found himself intrigued by the concept. Parker might be on to something...

Hardison called, and that kept Parker occupied for a little while longer as they debated her "intervention" plan. Afterward, they watched the original _True Grit,_ an argument Eliot was willing to win by force to avoid having to watch any more nature programs about wolves while Parker gave him odd glances. After a very short pout, to which Eliot was impervious since Parker was obviously no longer sick, she sidled up to him again, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Eliot found himself unable to really focus on the movie. This new easy familiarity between them was more than a little unsettling. It had been shaking up some very dusty, somewhat unfamiliar memories. Memories that felt like they didn't really belong to _him,_ like they were nothing more than scenes from a movie, played in the back of his mind. So why did they tug so sharply at his heart? Somewhat unnerved, Eliot made the conscious decision to deal with that question at a later time. He hadn't slept since Parker's early-morning call for help, and was too damned tired to do any soul-searching now...and he was _not_ going to be Parker's pillow tonight! He gently shrugged her off his shoulder, and she went without complaint to the couch in her office.

* * *

The following morning, Eliot rose just before dawn, feeling quite well-rested. He slipped down the hall to Parker's office, and eased open the door she had left slightly ajar of her own volition. "Parker?"

He got a muffled "Go 'way. 'M sleepin'," in reply.

Eliot hefted her lightweight travel bag from beside the door and gently tossed it to land on her legs. She startled upright. "You want waffles? Get dressed, we're goin' for a run, first!"

After a nice long and easy run through the cool of the morning, Eliot made the promised waffles. Thick, fluffy, Belgian style with cream cheese sauce and fresh blueberries, which Parker seemed to thoroughly enjoy impaling on her fork. Creepy, but at least she ate them.

With breakfast done, Eliot drove Parker out to get her car. They checked it thoroughly, _very_ thoroughly on Eliot's part, but no one had molested the Rabbit since Parker drove it out here. Eliot grinned as he remembered Parker's answer when Sophie and Hardison had asked why she didn't splurge and buy (or steal!) something flashier. _"It doesn't stand out, it's the car no one remembers when they report a burglary. And it reminds me not to drive away too fast after I finish a job."_ Eliot had been impressed by her sound logic. Hardison, who committed his crimes from behind a computer screen, and Sophie, who relied on flashy and memorable props, had only shaken their heads.

Eliot helped Parker transfer her belongings and several bags of individually-packaged leftovers from dinner, and the other things he had cooked yesterday. He knew she'd eat them, if he made them as quick and easy to re-heat as possible, and it made him feel better about letting her go home. Really, there was no reason not to let her go home now.

Eliot watched as Parker drove away, and out of deference to her own privacy and paranoia, kept himself from following her home. She had taken care of herself this long, he was sure her home security was solid, and she would take care not to be followed. He turned for his own place, not the apartment he kept in town, but the house and garden in the foothills above LA. Eliot would enjoy a few days of peace before the team's vacation ended, and they would have to confront Nate.

* * *

_"Yeah?" Eliot's voice cracked, his throat felt like sandpaper. That last job hadn't gone well._

_"Eliot? It's Mikey. Don't hang up! We've been trying to get hold of you! Eliot, you haven't been home in years! We all miss you man, Lizzie misses you."_

_"Did you need something Mikey?" It had been a mistake, not letting the call go to voicemail. He had thought it might be his current...employer._

_"Eliot, I proposed to Lizzie. We're getting married. We want you to come home for the wedding." Eliot felt something in his frozen heart clench. His little Lizzie..._

_"Look, I don't know what's happened to you while you've been gone, Eliot. Whatever it is, we don't care. Eliot, we want you at the wedding, we need you. Lizzie needs her brother." No, she didn't. She needed someone good and pure to be there for her. Eliot had known Mikey through school. He was a good man, he would do right by Lizzie._

_"El? Will you be there?" He couldn't defile the purest thing he had ever known. Not on her wedding day. Lizzie would be sad for a little while, but Mikey would take care of her. There was nothing left for Eliot to do now but stay away._

_"I'll be there."_

_"We'll look forward to seeing you." And Eliot knew Mikey had seen through his lie._

* * *

The memory of that phone call stopped Eliot in his tracks. It came through sharp and clear, not like the movie-reel memories that felt like they belonged to someone else. He dropped onto the bench that sat under the old apple tree in his yard, and hung his head in his hands. That phone call had been last time he had spoken to anyone from his old life, with the exception of Willie and Aimee Martin. Eliot had stopped answering calls to that number long ago, but he checked the messages sometimes...after he missed the wedding, the calls from his family had dropped off...even Dad had tried once or twice.

But by then, the old Eliot had been gone. Dead and buried, back in that prison camp. The only thing that had kept him alive had been thoughts of his family, and his future with Aimee. In the end, it hadn't been his own ingenuity that freed him, but a simple stupid mistake on the part of his captors that gave him his chance. And why could it not have come while his buddies had still been alive? He had left that camp alone, with so much blood on his hands...

They had known going in that it would be a dangerous mission. The word "suicide" was thrown around, but his team had pulled off this kind of thing before. But afterward, the look in Atherton's eyes when he saw Eliot again, alive...that was when Eliot understood this mission had been suicide in every sense of the word. There had not been a slim chance of success. There had been no chance at all. They had been sent to die.

And for living, Eliot had received an honorable discharge, and full military benefits, a medal, and an admonition to never speak of the mission, so highly classified that it simply Had. Never. Happened. And he came home to find a promise ring in an envelope in his held mail. And his hands were so soiled he couldn't bear to hug his sister, and he left again before he had to look his father in the eye.

Now, still seated on the bench, Eliot dug out his phone and stared at it. He had kept tabs on them all, of course. He had celebrated, from a distance, Lizzie's wedding, and graduation from veterinary school, and the birth of the nephew he would never meet.

It was better that Eliot stay away, safer for everyone. Let them live their lives in peace. Eliot knew he could never have that again. He couldn't bring his life, his shame, and his enemies anywhere near them. But, oh God, how he missed them. He almost hadn't responded to Willie's plea for help. But Willie was safe, Willie had moved to Kentucky, away from the rest of Eliot's family. And Willie had never asked _Why?_ Was it possible to go back? Not to what he had been so long ago, he could never be that person again. But to something like it? Could he have at least a shadow of it? Would _she_ even want that? What Eliot was considering right now made him question his own sanity.

Eliot stared hard at the cell phone in his hand, the one issued by Hardison, who had sworn up and down it was untraceable, un-hackable...safe.

A phone call. One simple phone call, nothing else. Not yet. He could survive a phone call, right? Eliot dialed a number he'd memorized years ago but had never used and when an oh so familiar voice answered, he managed to speak past the sudden fear constricting his throat, "Lizzie?"

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, you don't get to find out about that call...Yet.


End file.
